Awards

• Long-listed for International DUBLIN Literary Award 2018
• Short-listed for ReLit Awards 2017 (Canada)

Overview

Longlisted, 2018 International DUBLIN Literary Award Long-shortlisted, 2017 ReLit Awards ""Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity’s eternal motivations."" — Quill & Quire ""In Butler Hallett’s hands, Kit comes off as a fascinating and contradictory figure, part martyred freethinker and part unscrupulous opportunist."" — Winnipeg Review ""Perfectly paced and gracefully wrought."" — Toronto Star 1593. Queen Elizabeth still reigns but grows old. Two rival spymasters — Sir Robert Cecil and the Earl of Essex — plot from the shadows. Their goal: to control succession upon the aged queen’s death. The man on which their schemes depend: Christopher Marlowe (""Kit"" to his friends), a cobbler’s son from Canterbury who has defied expectations and become an accomplished poet and playwright. And spy. As the novel opens, Kit Marlowe, fresh from betraying the target of his espionage, is himself betrayed. Fighting to stay one step ahead in a dizzying game that threatens the lives of those he holds most dear, including his beloved Tom Kyd, he comes to question his allegiances and nearly everything he once believed. In this psychological thriller, Michelle Butler Hallett fleshes out the historical record with insight and the rigor of authenticity. Her 16th-century England, surprising and fresh, offers historical figures both famous and obscure, casual descriptions of quotidian life, and vivid representations of cruelty and violence that reverberate with echoes of our own time. But it’s Kit, the fascinating Marlowe, an endless source of brilliance, passion and defiance, that brings the novel to life. Writes playwright Robert Chafe, ""History’s Marlowe becomes [Butler Hallet’s] own, offering us his wit and wisdom and seemingly new lessons about faith, ambition, loyalty, and yes, love.""

Full Product Details

9781773100487

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Reviews

There's the real rigour of authenticity here, the tone and nuance of a time and place skilfully conjured. Butler Hallett's great gift to us, though, is her ability to chart these waters in ways that are still surprising and fresh. History's Marlowe becomes her own, offering us his wit and wisdom and seemingly new lessons about faith, ambition, loyalty, and yes, love. - Robert Chaff - 20161001 Michelle Butler Hallett angles a glass onto a four-centuries-old tragedy and haunts us with our own reflection. This Marlowe is lyrical, audacious, and achingly human: a psychological thriller and a meditation upon power, faith, loyalty, and betrayal -- and the capacity of love to ruin and redeem. I loved it. - Ian Weir - 20161001 Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity's eternal motivations, This Marlowe holds up extremely well next to the most lauded recent historical fiction. - Quill & Quire - 20160602 This daring genre hybrid explores the dark realities of Elizabethan England, while throwing some refracted light onto our own turbulent time. - Alison Gilmour - The Winnipeg Review - 20160602 Perfectly paced and gracefully wrought, This Marlowe is superior historical fare. - The Toronto Star - 20160327 Butler Hallett builds upon a strong, believable foundation, giving the reader a vibrant sense of the times. - Atlantic Books Today - 20160306

"""Butler Hallett builds upon a strong, believable foundation, giving the reader a vibrant sense of the times."" * <i>Atlantic Books Today</i> * ""This daring genre hybrid explores the dark realities of Elizabethan England, while throwing some refracted light onto our own turbulent time."" -- Alison Gilmour * <i>The Winnipeg Review</i> * ""There's the real rigour of authenticity here, the tone and nuance of a time and place skilfully conjured. Butler Hallett's great gift to us, though, is her ability to chart these waters in ways that are still surprising and fresh. History's Marlowe becomes her own, offering us his wit and wisdom and seemingly new lessons about faith, ambition, loyalty, and yes, love."" -- Robert Chaff ""Perfectly paced and gracefully wrought, This Marlowe is superior historical fare."" * <i>The Toronto Star</i> * ""Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity's eternal motivations, This Marlowe holds up extremely well next to the most lauded recent historical fiction."" * <i>Quill & Quire</i> * ""Michelle Butler Hallett angles a glass onto a four-centuries-old tragedy and haunts us with our own reflection. This Marlowe is lyrical, audacious, and achingly human: a psychological thriller and a meditation upon power, faith, loyalty, and betrayal — and the capacity of love to ruin and redeem. I loved it."" -- Ian Weir"

"""Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity's eternal motivations."" -- Quill & Quire ""In Butler Hallett's hands, Kit comes off as a fascinating and contradictory figure, part martyred freethinker and part unscrupulous opportunist."" -- Winnipeg Review ""Perfectly paced and gracefully wrought."" -- Toronto Star"

There's the real rigour of authenticity here, the tone and nuance of a time and place skilfully conjured. Butler Hallett's great gift to us, though, is her ability to chart these waters in ways that are still surprising and fresh. History's Marlowe becomes her own, offering us his wit and wisdom and seemingly new lessons about faith, ambition, loyalty, and yes, love. - Robert Chaff - 20161001 Complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed and humanity's eternal motivations, This Marlowe holds up extremely well next to the most lauded recent historical fiction. - Quill & Quire - 20160602 This daring genre hybrid explores the dark realities of Elizabethan England, while throwing some refracted light onto our own turbulent time. - Alison Gilmour - The Winnipeg Review - 20160602 Butler Hallett builds upon a strong, believable foundation, giving the reader a vibrant sense of the times. - Atlantic Books Today - 20160306 Michelle Butler Hallett angles a glass onto a four-centuries-old tragedy and haunts us with our own reflection. This Marlowe is lyrical, audacious, and achingly human: a psychological thriller and a meditation upon power, faith, loyalty, and betrayal -- and the capacity of love to ruin and redeem. I loved it. - Ian Weir - 20161001 Perfectly paced and gracefully wrought, This Marlowe is superior historical fare. - The Toronto Star - 20160327

Author Information

Michelle Butler Hallett, she/her, is a history nerd and disabled person who writes fiction about violence, evil, love, and grace. The Toronto Star describes her work as ""perfectly paced and gracefully wrought,"" while Quill and Quire calls it ""complex, lyrical, and with a profound sense of a world long passed."" Her short stories are widely anthologized in Hard Ol’ Spot, The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, Everything Is So Political, Running the Whale’s Back, and Best American Mystery Stories, and her essay ""You’re Not ‘Disabled’ Disabled"" appears in Land of Many Shores. Her most recent novel, This Marlowe, was longlisted for the ReLit Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. Her first novel, Double-blind, was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award. Butler Hallett lives in St. John’s. Constant Nobody is her fifth novel.

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