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Book Reviewed by:A propulsive and piercing debut, set ten years before the events of Shakespeare's historic play, about the ambition, power, and fate that define one of literature's most notorious figures: Lady Macbeth.
Scotland, the 11th Century. Born in a noble household and granddaughter of a forgotten Scottish king, a young girl carries the guilt of her mother's death and the weight of an unknowable prophecy. When she is married, at fifteen, to the Mormaer of Moray, she experiences firsthand the violence of a sadistic husband and a kingdom constantly at war. To survive with her young son in a superstitious realm, she must rely on her own cunning and wit, especially when her husband's downfall inadvertently sets them free.
Suspicious of the dark devices that may have led to his father's death, her son watches as his mother falls in love with the enigmatic thane Macbeth. Now a woman of stature, Lady Macbeth confronts a world of masculine power and secures the protection of her family. But the coronation of King Duncan and the political maneuvering of her cousin Macduff set her on a tragic course, one where her own success might mean embracing the very curse that haunts her and risking the child she loves.
Chapter One
In my husband's eyes I see a hunger. In their gleam is a longing to know. We lie together, pale in the milky half-light, half ourselves, half each other's.
It is our wedding night.
He rises on an elbow, considers my face. His eyes dwell on each feature—mouth, nose, cheek, and chin. I am a book he desires to read. He wishes that I would teach him how.
"Tell me," he says.
I grin. He is a poor student of anything apart from the battlefield. There he is practiced, studied. But he has not yet learned to apply his art to life—or to love.
"My noble lord," I say. "You tell me. Describe what you see."
He considers. Where to begin?
"Your lips," he says, "are red as roses."
I sigh. "It's a start. A schoolboy's, but a start."
"Oh?" He is not used to being thwarted. "Let me try again. Your rose-red lips are full of mirth."
"Too easy." I grin. "You cheat."
"But when you laugh, your smile is slightly crooked on one side. Here, on the right."
I smile again.
"Just so," he says. He brushes the...
Joel H. Morris's debut novel, All Our Yesterdays, is a prequel to Shakespeare's famous tragedy Macbeth, beginning with "The Lady's" marriage to the warlord Macbeth and ending with her learning her husband has been declared Thane of Cawdor (which is where Shakespeare's play begins). The author brilliantly imagines this woman's eleventh-century life, restoring her voice and giving her purpose while vividly describing the world in which she lived. What really makes the novel a standout is how seamlessly the author incorporates elements of Shakespeare's play into the narrative while still making the work his own. The misty fens of Macbeth are ever-present in All Our Yesterdays, as is the overwhelming feeling of a malevolent presence that wishes ill upon the house of Macbeth; one can almost feel the clammy, swirling fog as one reads...continued
Full Review
(613 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Jennifer Croft, author of The Extinction of Irena Rey
A gorgeous evocation of a mother and son in a prison of their own too-powerful story, All Our Yesterdays is a triumph of both research and imagination, a heartbreaking and revelatory read. Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Lady Macbeth is surely one of our most instantly recognizable characters, a shorthand now for heartless and overweening ambition. In All Our Yesterdays, Morris has given her the deep, nuanced, and complicated backstory she deserves. With witches! Thoroughly engrossing, highly recommended.
Joel H. Morris's novel All Our Yesterdays imagines the lives of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, before the events that unfold in Shakespeare's tragedy. Many are familiar with the tale but may not realize the couple are based on individuals who really did live in what is now Scotland during the eleventh century.
Scotland was known as the Kingdom of Alba from 900 to 1286 CE, and Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findláech, c. 1005–1057 CE) and his wife Gruoch (born c. 1015, death unknown) were both descended from Alba royalty through the line of Malcolm I (Máel Coluim mac Domnaill, d. 954).
Malcom had two sons who succeeded him: Duff (Dub mac Maíl Coluim, reigned 962–967) and Kenneth II (Cin&...
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"Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare's life … here is a novel … so gorgeously written that it transports you." —The Boston Globe
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