In stately Easton House in Oxfordshire, where she has served as housekeeper for decades, Aerlene Ward decides to put her story to paper. She will finally reveal herself as the product of her spirited mother’s love affair with William Shakespeare, back when the bard was a mere apprentice player in a theatre troupe. On account of Aerlene’s failing eyesight, however, she must rely on Charlotte, the youngest Easton daughter, to be her amanuensis.

The story Aerlene tells Charlotte serves as the foundation of Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard. Aerlene recalls her own childhood, which involved the death of her mother and much shuttling between relatives, and climaxed in a brief meeting with her supposed father in London at the age of 14. Following this, she entered the domestic service and lived unassumingly thereafter.

It’s a remarkable tale, but Aerlene’s habit of embellishing the truth (to put it mildly) quickly becomes evident. For example, whenever she retells her father’s plays as bedtime stories, she changes the endings to ensure they are happy. Even Aerlene is not sure whether Charlotte is able to distinguish the true parts of her story from all her fanciful imaginings and reimaginings. When Charlotte questions the veracity of Aerlene’s recollections – whole conversations to which Aerlene was not privy apparently recounted word for word – Aerlene explains that she’s seeking “a truth beyond the factual.”

Such ambiguity fails to satisfy, however, and no truth beyond fudged facts ever emerges from Aerlene’s tale. The problem lies partly with Wright’s prose, which doesn’t convey the vibrancy of oral address, and reads more as straight telling than storytelling. Further, the connections Aerlene draws between Shakespeare’s work and her own life often seem forced and unnatural. Shakespeare himself is nothing more than a device in the novel, never becoming a living, breathing figure.

Though Wright’s depiction of Elizabethan London is interesting, especially his take on the city’s book trade, the story he tells never comes to life.