Speak Easy, Speak Love

July 15, 2017
In this 1920s-era retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, young Benedick Scott has decided once and for all to leave Stony Creek Academy, defying his father, to pursue his dream to be a writer. While making one last climb out of his dorm room window, he is discovered and then joined by his aristocratic, British classmate, Claude, who decides to latch on to Benedick's adventure. Then there's Beatrice, who's kicked out of a home for wayward girls and picked up by her cousin, Hero, who drives her to her uncle Leo's estate on Long Island. Beatrice quickly learns that Uncle Leo's mansion doubles as the Hey Nonny Nonny speak-easy by night, run by Hero and her merry band of teens. Also living at Hey Nonny Nonny is Maggie, the black singer whose voice draws the upper-crust crowd the speak-easy needs to stay in business. (The other principals are white.) Naturally, romance blossoms between Beatrice and Benedick, with the help of a few friends. This 400-plus-page retelling will likely disappoint readers who haven't encountered the original. As a stand-alone plot, it loses steam over its length, and placing teenage characters in the very adult positions of running a speak-easy and acquiring illegal booze stretches credulity. The characters feel out of place and never fully come to life in this 1920s time period. Ambitious but a miss. (Historical fiction. 14-18)

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