The Tutor

Chapin’s debut novel imagines the shaky romance between a widow and her nephews’ tutor, a budding actor and poet named William Shakespeare, against the background of family strife and religious persecution in 16th-century England. After losing her husband and babies, Katharine de L’Isle throws herself into reading and devotes herself to her kindly uncle Sir Edward, who wishes her to be happy and to marry again. When their priest is killed, Sir Edward decides to make his way to France (having already once been imprisoned by the Protestant queen); Katharine, who is feeling vulnerable among her other nutty relatives, initially finds Will irritating, but quickly succumbs to his charms. The sexual tension between them increases when he asks for her help in creating a long poem about Venus and Adonis. Meanwhile, there are signs that Will might be a heartless social climber and not the loving, trustworthy sort that Katharine imagines him to be. Though the beginning is rife with obvious meet-cute and will-they-or-won’t-they tropes, Chapin manages to construct a moving account of Katharine’s plight. The backdrop of family in-fighting and petty power-seizing also underscores how Sir Edward’s departure put Katharine, a single woman of modest means, in a true predicament among her unbalanced relatives. Unfortunately, the heroine makes some head-scratching choices as her family plummets into further mayhem and melodrama—moves that pull the story into territory that’s more silly than tragic. Despite this, Chapin’s inaugural work offers a fun portrait of Shakespeare as a cad. (Feb.)