The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet

It doesn't get any more meta than this odd prequel, which recounts Hamlet's early years as a student at Wittenberg University. After Horatio, who narrates and quickly becomes obsessed with the beautiful Hamlet, is asked to translate and stage a play by the wealthy merchant Baron de Maricourt and his wife, Lady Adriane (who shows a marked weakness for writers), Horatio casts Hamlet in a major role—that of a young woman—as a way of getting to spend time in his company. Soon, Horatio undertakes a series of sonnets to immortalize Hamlet, but when Adriane gets wind of Horatio's new project, she begins to interfere. Further complications arise with the arrival of a playwright named Will Shake-spear who threatens to usurp Horatio's position with Lady Adriane and Hamlet. Filled with out-of-context quotes from Hamlet , confusions in sexual identity more commonly found in Shakespeare's comedies, and cameo appearances by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the novel too self-consciously repurposes elements from Shakespeare's tragedy, rendering this a colorful if incidental prologue to the tragic events at Elsinore Castle. (Feb.)