Before Romeo loved Juliet, he loved Rosaline. So Natasha Solomons reminds us in the author’s note at the end of her seventh novel, Fair Rosaline. Described as Capulet’s “fair niece” but never heard from directly, Rosaline is the reason Romeo gatecrashes Lord Capulet’s ball, only to immediately fall for Juliet instead. Solomons retells the story from Rosaline’s perspective and reinterprets the “love” between Romeo and Juliet, casting Romeo, with his changeable quixotic passions, in a predatory light.
The story starts with the funeral of 15-year-old Rosaline’s beloved mother, Emelia Capulet. Despite Emelia’s status, it is a grim, sparsely attended affair because she has died of the “pestilence”. Straight after the funeral, Rosaline’s unloving father tells her she is to be sent to a nunnery – a cynical move to save the ruinous expense of a dowry. Rosaline, who we are often told is headstrong – “neither meek nor obedient … want[ing] too much” – negotiates with her father to have 12 free nights first. She is determined “to know something of love before she’s locked away, husband or not”.
Disguising herself in her brother’s discarded clothes, Rosaline sneaks into a masque being held in the Montagues’ labyrinthine gardens. She knows about the feud between her family and the Montagues (here said to originate from “a Capulet bride cast aside”), but such is her hunger for experience that “if the devil himself was playing host she would attend with ribbons in her hair”.
At the masque she meets Romeo, who is very pretty of speech and confident with the ladies. Crucially, here he is 25-30 years old (his age wasn’t specified in Shakespeare’s play), with glints of silver in his hair. Their romance begins and is consummated a night or two later when he sneaks into her room.
Rosaline falls heavily but not unreservedly for Romeo. He is intense and pushy and, later, jealous and controlling, accusing her of having an “inviting eye” after she is spied cavorting in a woodland glade with her beloved cousins Juliet and Tybalt.
Fifteen and dark-skinned like Rosaline, Tybalt is excitable but also loyal and courageous. He genuinely loves Rosaline and offers to marry her to save her from the nunnery. She rejects his offer, unsure of both her own and his heart. And anyway, there’s Romeo.
Rosaline is asked to spend her few precious days amusing little Juliet. Juliet, who carefully hides her dolls under the bed, who has scabbed knees and grubby feet and who, as in Shakespeare’s play, is only 13.
Meanwhile, Rosaline finds out about Romeo’s dark past: pregnant and discarded maids, the younger the better. She tells Romeo she will not marry him.
And then Lord Capulet holds a ball …
The novel reaches out past the ending of the play and let’s just say that, due to Rosaline’s resourcefulness, it ends differently for some of the characters. There is some hope in this end, but there’s still plenty of violence, grief and sacrifice to go around.
The use of Elizabethan flourishes and direct quotes from the play in the dialogue leads to occasional clunkiness, especially in the pacy scenes (of which there are many). However, there’s real anger here at the exploitation of girls and young women by powerful and predatory men and through the valuing of “virtue” and the marriage marketplace. Regardless of how realistic for its time Rosaline’s well-articulated enlightenment becomes, it’s a real pleasure to follow her journey to self-empowerment. After reading it yourself, you may want to press it into the hands of the nearest younger adult.
Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons (Manilla Press, $36.99)
