The real tragedy of Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet is not that the title characters die. What is far more tragic is that Juliet actually ends up with a mere player (whose cheesy pickup lines only sound good in iambic pentameter and whose sole goal is to bed her) when all the while the perfect-in-every-way Paris is waiting to commit to marriage! The Properer Man spins the characters from Shakespeare’s famous play into a twenty-first-century American setting featuring pop star Rome Ayo, the patient Harvard-educated suitor Con Pierce, Julia Cappell and her real estate tycoon father, and of course, Dr. Shaelyn K. Speare, who supplies a happy ending that’s much more satisfying than a stage littered with corpses.
The Properer Man will appeal to readers who simply want to spend a long afternoon in a modern world where perfect males really do exist. Allusions, though, to Shakespeare’s characters, story line, imagery, and even oft-quoted passages mean the novella can also encourage literature students to analyze how an author transforms source material. (The answers are even included.)
