Blue Mountain Rose
A Novel in Five Acts
An artistic novel, Blue Mountain Rose explores new love and new life stages against the backdrop of Shakespearean productions.
In Julie Hammonds’s engaging novel Blue Mountain Rose, the members of an Arizona Shakespeare company navigate their personal and professional dramas while preparing for a production of Hamlet.
In 2009, Flagstaff’s Blue Mountain Rose Theatre approaches its fortieth season. Revered for its annual Shakespeare repertory programs, the Rose has witnessed decades of stellar performances. But the 2008 economic crisis impacts financial patronage of the open-air theater, which needs a complete structural overhaul.
As casting begins for Hamlet, the season’s opening play, Peter arrives from New Zealand to audition. Peter impresses Richard, the Rose’s longtime director, and is offered the title role. Though Peter claims to be an easygoing Kiwi, he is really a Londoner who has created an alternate identity. Peter’s recent role in Thirst, a movie about vampires, brought him cultish, intrusive fame; by using a different surname and making slight changes to his appearance, he hopes to reconnect with the true craft of acting at the Rose, all while escaping the paparazzi and his “vampire clan” fans.
The book’s setting is intriguing: the Rose’s Elizabethan design (it was built “as a faithful echo of the Globe Theatre from Shakespeare’s day”) exists in contrast to the natural beauty and culture of the American Southwest. Amid a landscape of mesas, pine forests, and “bountiful stars,” the Hamlet cast members prepare for the physical and emotional demands of their upcoming performances. Of Navajo heritage, the Rose’s stage manager, Tahoma, controls production logistics with mystical and masterful purpose. Kate, Richard’s indispensable assistant and a single mother, reflects upon her eleven years at the theater, recalling recreated scenes of “Rome and Verona, palaces and London streets, ale houses and battlefields.”
Increasing in complexity as it continues, the book proffers insights via perspective shifts between Kate, Peter, and Richard. Though Kate resolves not to become involved with any “players” at the Rose, her eventual romance with Peter advances with caring intimacy. At times, the descriptions of their interactions are somewhat familiar, as when Kate responds to Peter’s embrace with “every inch of her body.” Yet there are also more distinctive, passionate moments, as with the couple’s shared “whitewater rush of kisses that seemed to make it both impossible to breathe, and unnecessary.”
The depiction of Peter’s celebrity status is both convincing and unnerving, as he’s pursued by entertainment reporters, stalking photographers, and obsessed fans who “dress as vampires” and try to lick his skin. Richard is also compelling and appealing; his backstory includes his emergence from a “brawling” Irish youth to become a “young lion” of the Dublin stage. Now in his late sixties and feeling burdened by his role of theater director and administrator, Richard contemplates retirement.
Deft Shakespearean references prevail throughout the book: Richard’s cat is named after Romeo and Juliet’s irrepressible Tybalt, and a quote from The Comedy of Errors’s Balthasar heralds the opening night cast supper, that “Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.” And as Hamlet‘s premiere arrives, the Rose’s on- and off-stage troubles move the story toward an uplifting conclusion that still maintains the theatrical world’s necessary balance between pragmatism and artistry.
With meticulous details and singular settings, the novel Blue Mountain Rose captures the enduring and transformational power of Shakespeare’s works.
Reviewed by
Meg Nola
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
