The Tragedy of Arthur

Twins Arthur and Dana have been immersed their entire lives in their father's obsession with Shakespeare. Now the literary ex-con claims to have discovered a lost Shakespeare play--THE TRAGEDY OF [KING] ARTHUR. But twin Arthur thinks the work is a forgery. His sister, Dana, on the other hand, deeply believes in her father. Portraying the skeptical twin, David Baker voices a cynical wit with a weary sardonic tone. He gives Dana a lighter voice and makes the story's other characters sound distinctive as well. The novel is presented as a memoir by twin Arthur, which has been published as the "introduction" to the new play--which is also part of the book. The building suspense over the authenticity of the Shakespearean scholarship is accompanied by sharp jabs to the publishing industry. Baker's fluency enhances a fascinating tale. A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from February 28, 2011
A long-lost Shakespeare play surfaces in Phillips's wily fifth novel, a sublime faux memoir framed as the introduction to the play's first printing—a Modern Library edition, of course. Arthur Phillips and his twin sister, Dana, maintained an uncommon relationship with their gregarious father, a forger whose passion for the bard and for creating magic in the everyday (he takes his kids to make crop circles one night) leave lasting impressions on them both: Dana becomes a stage actress and amateur Shakespeare expert; Arthur a writer who "never much liked Shakespeare." Their father spends most of their lives in prison, but when he's about to be released as a frail old man, he enlists Arthur in securing the publication of The Tragedy of Arthur from an original quarto he claims to have purloined from a British estate decades earlier, though, as the authentication process wears on—successfully—Arthur becomes convinced the play is his father's greatest scam. Along the way, Arthur riffs on his career and ex-pat past, and, most excruciatingly, unpacks his relationship with Dana and his own romantic flailings. Then there's the play itself, which reads not unlike something written by the man from Stratford-upon-Avon. It's a tricky project, funny and brazen, smart and playful.