Juliet’s Answer: One Man's Search for Love and the Elusive Cure for Heartbreak
By: Glenn Dixon / Narrated By: Jim Meskimen
Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
Nice memoir, especially when Dixon speaks of his students
Glenn Dixon was a man struck down by love and betrayal. In Juliet’s Answer, he travels to Verona to become one of Juliet’s Secretaries—a group of individuals who answer letters sent to the spirit of the fair Juliet, letters of heartsick and longing, letters of joy and gratitude.
Mostly letters from the heartsick, as Dixon himself can attest. He’s been suffering from unrequited love for some time; the woman who is his best friend loves him dearly but “not that way”. What’s a man to do? He throws himself into writing back to the lovelorn with the wisdom he wishes he could give to his earlier self and with lines from Shakespeare thrown in for good measure. And he meets and works with some interesting people along the way.
My favorite part of Juliet’s Answer, however, is when he’s back in Canada teaching “Romeo and Juliet” to his students. Man, I wish I’d had him to guide me through that play! Not that my teachers made it dull, but the way he brings the play, the characters, the history, and the love and strife to life just made it seem that much more tender and exciting to me. He engages and enthralls his students, brings both the popular students and the outcasts together and gives them a good hour, more than enough to keep them from falling asleep in class. He even sets them up as lawyers to plead Romeo’s case against murder (or for it, it depends on their argument!).
Verona is brought to life as well, with its weather, its fine gelato, its warm and beautiful people, but Dixon knows he’s only a visitor there; his real life is where he can take his shoes off and hopefully be with the one he loves. We follow him on his journey to win his heart’s true love, and our toes curl in agony as he discovers her ultimate betrayal. Jim Meskimen turns in a fine portrayal as an earnest and lovelorn man, one who is open to delights, one who might be shut down to love.
And though the book ends on a “happy” note, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a tad bittersweet. To me, it seemed that Dixon was just settling for what life had to offer him at the moment, that he went through a door simply because it was open.
Make of his romantic life what you will, but no matter what, the way he teaches “Romeo and Juliet” to his students will have you reaching for your Completed Works of William Shakespeare to take a gander of that masterpiece again. And the way he touches the lives of his students will have you rooting for him and for a Happily Ever After.
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