Hag-Seed

The fourth book in the Hogarth series of contemporary novels based on Shakespeare’s plays is a delightfully complex and inventive modern recreation of The Tempest, in which the character of Prospero is a prominent theater festival director named Felix. Voice actor Thomson adds life to the character of Felix and the plots and fantasies of his fertile imagination. Felix is pushed out of his job by a scheming underling and goes off the grid, teaching literacy and theater to prisoners and grieving a lost daughter. Over time, Felix transforms into the clever and manipulative teacher who organizes a class of convicts to analyze and perform Shakespeare’s Tempest as a means of executing his vengeance. Thomson handles the wild but benevolent humor of Shakespeare’s Tempest and Atwood’s equally well. [em]A Hogarth hardcover. (Oct.) [/em]