‘NEW BOY’: SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY AS 6TH-GRADE DRAMA
Shakespearean tragedy as sixth-grade drama
Tracy Chevalier has eight popular historical fiction titles to her name, ranging in setting from the 17th-century Netherlands (“Girl With a Pearl Earring”) to mid-19thcentury California (“At the Edge of the Orchard”).
But for “New Boy” the fifth entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare remake series, she’s chosen to lend the tragedy of “Othello” a nearcontemporary situation and a backdrop much closer to home: her native Washington, D.C.
It’s the spring of 1974, and though there’s only one month remaining in the school year, it’s Osei Kokote’s first day. The son of a Ghanaian diplomat posted to the D.C. embassy, Osei is used to moving around; his family has lived everywhere from Rome to New York City.
Osei, who also goes simply by “O,” looks for a fellow person of color amid the “parade of pinkand-cream suburban Americans. But there was none.” He sticks out not just for his skin color but also for his uniform-like outfit and his dignified, well-spoken manner.
Fortunately, he’s immediately taken under the wing of one of the most popular sixth-graders, Daniela Benedetti (known as Dee), and they’re soon inseparable. Rounding out the key “Othello” cast members are Ian, a playground bully, and his reluctant girlfriend, Mimi.
In “Othello” a dropped handkerchief provided Iago’s opportunity to ruin Desdemona’s reputation; here the drama centers on a misplaced strawberry pencil case O swapped with Dee. Ian uses it to fuel O’s suspicion that Dee is twotiming him and thus drive them apart.
The novel takes place all in one day, divided into discrete sections by recess periods and a lunch break. The strict five-act structure and relatively frequent references to other Shakespeare plays emphasize the meta aspect, although not as much as in Margaret Atwood’s “Hag-Seed.”
Dee has a refreshingly innocent curiosity about the exotic: “It was his skin that stood out, its color reminding [her] of bears she’d seen at the zoo.” She also likens O’s head to a clay pot and his hair to a thick forest. In another context those metaphors might induce a cringe, but here they are a clever re-creation of a childlike perspective.
However, the language of possession and desire — “the fire [O] had felt when he first saw [Dee] flared up again” and “since then [Mimi] had felt bound to Ian” — feels overly dramatic here. Such vocabulary might be appropriate to use for high school seniors, but it’s impossible to forget that these are just 11-year-olds.
Jump rope rhymes, jungle gyms, kickball games, arts and crafts, and a typical cafeteria meal of Salisbury steak and tater tots: it’s impressive how Ms. Chevalier takes these ordinary elements and transforms them into symbols of a complex hierarchy and shifting loyalties.
Most remarkable, though, is how the novel explores the psyche of a boy isolated by racial difference. The schoolteachers’ casual racism is breathtaking: “I think I hear drums” and “Given her a taste for chocolate milk?” they joke between themselves.
Little surprise, then, that the children display a similar attitude, as when Ian makes a joke about blacks being good at sports. Teachers and pupils alike express disgust at Dee and O’s budding relationship.
Meanwhile, O ponders the politicized example set by his older sister, Sisi, who has alternately played up her Africanness and her African-American identity — wearing kente cloth and an Afro, or giving Black Power salutes. Between those extremes, he makes a surprising choice.
For all the parallels to the plot of “Othello,” this is an engrossing and ultimately convincing story of its own, with characters you’ll believe in and a tragic ending worthy of the Bard. Rebecca Foster is an American transplant to England and a fulltime freelance editor and writer. She reviews books for a number of print and online publications in the U.S. and U.K.