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Anne Tyler successfully reinterprets The Taming of the Shrew in a modern, pleasingly nuanced novel.

Vinegar Girl is the third in Hogarth Shakespeare’s line of retold classics by the Bard (The Gap of Time, Shylock Is My Name). Anne Tyler’s delightful, clever novelization sets The Taming of the Shrew in present-day Baltimore, Md., holding faithfully to Shakespeare’s plot and concept but presenting far more complex characters, with absolutely charming results.

Kate is 29 and lives with her absent-minded microbiologist father, Dr. Battista, and her younger sister, pretty and air-headed Bunny. She serves as housekeeper and chaperone, not that they appreciate her efforts. She also works at a preschool, where the kids adore her but the adults have trouble with her sense of humor. Her real passion is gardening. As Vinegar Girl opens, Dr. Battista faces a problem: his gifted foreign assistant, Pyotr Cherbakov, is in the U.S. on an extraordinary-ability visa that’s about to run out. Dr. Battista feels sure he’s on the verge of a breakthrough, but he needs Pyotr to be able to stay a little longer. The reader realizes well ahead of Kate that what her father has in mind is an arranged marriage.

The prickly Kate feels she’s been taken advantage of long enough; she finds Pyotr pushy, and she isn’t looking for a husband, anyway. Kate repeatedly corrects him: she is not a “girl” but a “woman.” As she sees more of him, though, it appears that some of his awkward heavy-handedness may be related to his difficulties with the English language. And her father’s plan to satisfy the immigration authorities doesn’t mean she’d have to be married forever…

Vinegar Girl‘s modern setting and language enliven a classic tale of controversy and gender politics. The novelistic form illuminates the inner workings of Shakespeare’s characters, revealing attractive nuances. Tyler’s Kate is more soft-hearted, and a view of her inner workings exposes her insecurities. This Kate is quite sympathetic in both senses of the word: she empathizes with her eccentric father and the homesick Pyotr, and calls upon the reader’s sympathies. Pyotr is awkward and lonely, but appealingly smitten by Kate’s independent nature. Even Dr. Battista (despite his objectionable motives) and the maddening Bunny are revealed as intricate and ultimately likable characters.

Readers unfamiliar with The Taming of the Shrew will have no problem enjoying this novel, which is funny, fun-loving and uplifting. Those who know the original well will be intrigued by Tyler’s riffs: Is the new Kate less shrewish, or simply better characterized, her motives and anxieties better understood? In either case, the surprising ending, which deviates from Shakespeare’s in important ways, makes for a heartwarming conclusion to a quirky, timeless tale.

This review originally ran in the May 23, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: classics retold, misc fiction, Shakespeare, Shelf Awareness |