“It’s About This Nurse…” Favorite Stories Retold

It sometimes happens when I go to the theater, or the movies, or read a book, that I find the minor characters more interesting than the people the story is supposed to be about. This often means that I am paying more attention to the servants or the villain than the young lovers or other main characters, and wonder what their story is. The next three books give the reader some of that.

Lois Leveen's Juliet's Nurse tells the tale of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers through the eyes of the character who has the most lines after Romeo and Juliet, her "honey nurse." Angelica is mourning the loss of her six sons to the plague and then the death of her infant daughter when the Cappelletti (Capulet) family contracts her to be the wet-nurse to their own newborn daughter, Juliet. Angelica grows to love Juliet like her own child, though she longs for her husband, Pietro, master of earthly delights. There are plenty of twists and turns before one gets to the five fateful days that Shakespeare writes about, and Angelica learns quickly that when your employers are idiots, you have to both be very clever and play the fool at the same time. The appeal of this book, besides a twisty plot, are the deep characterizations, the sensual descriptions and the well-researched historical detail. Juliet's Nurse is a tale of love and loss, and how one has to just pick oneself up and move on.

Longbourn, by Jo Baker, is a happier tale. As Austen fans may have guessed from the title, this is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice from the downstairs view. Longbourn also has deep characterization and period detail, particularly of the vicissitudes of servant life. Sarah, a housemaid of the Bennetts, finds herself attracted to John, the new manservant. Not sensing that he shares her feelings, Sarah tries to form a connection with Ptolemy, Bingley's footman. John saves Sarah from an impulsive error, and a relationship begins. Longbourn may be written in the style of Jane Austen, but it provides at least as juicy and dramatic fare.

Gregory Maguire's Wicked is probably the most celebrated of these three books. Telling the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West, Maguire does a masterful job of world-building. It is definitely not the Technicolor world that Judy Garland and Co. pranced around in. Maguire uses the book to ask some hard questions about what constitutes good and evil, and what is justified in resisting injustice. Like my two other recommendations, characterization is paramount, though a plot full of incident is present, too. Even if you've seen the musical, you will want to pick this volume up, as it is a whole other experience.