About this book
Who is Macbeth? Why is there so much superstition about his story that actors are frightened to mention his name backstage, for fear of bad luck? Is the play ‘cursed’ and if so, by whom and why? What is the relationship between this drama and the accession to the English throne of a King from Scotland?
Psychotherapist Jacob Fortune returns to seventeenth century England to investigate, starting with the Scottish King. What sort of man is he? Is he kind, pious and generous as he would like his people to believe, or is he duplicitous, narcissistic and sexually manipulative, as rumour has it?
Jacob’s mission takes him on an adventure between London and Wilton House in Wiltshire, where the King goes, when fleeing the plague in London.
But elsewhere, Jacob’s task is both hindered and helped by his twin sister Jackie and her headstrong partner Ever.
At home in the 21st century, a member of the House of Commons, with an ego far larger than his ability, seeks psychotherapeutic help from Amelia Angel, team leader at 4 Psychotherapists 4U.
Jacob, and his companion Spikey the cat, hold up a mirror to society, exploring issues which are also relevant today: the boundaries between truth and lies; fiction and reality; privilege and the abuse of power.
This tongue-in-cheek detective story provides a ‘novel’ introduction to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
About the author
Michael Scott is a noted theatre critic, and a widely published authority on Shakespeare and on Elizabethan drama. His books include John Marston’s Plays: Theme, Structure and Performance (Macmillan 1978); Renaissance Drama & A Modern Audience (Palgrave Macmillan, 1982); Shakespeare & The Modern Dramatist (St. Martin’s Press, 1989); Shakespeare, A Complete introduction (John Murray Press, 2017). He has previously published fiction as Michael Kerr Scott: Arthur, Legends of the King (Albert Bridge Books, 2017); Hamlet and the Psychotherapist (EER, 2022).
He is currently Fellow and Senior Dean at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, and Director of the Future of the Humanities Project with Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Reviews
"It's a fascinating read and an unusual take on the play, the characters and the novel form." - John Drakakis
"Scott takes us on a historical journey back in time to Jacobean England in a version of Macbeth like no other, a remarkable tale which carefully juxtaposes the world of the 17th century and the 21st century" - Elen Mai Nefydd
"It’s like Doctor Who or The Time Traveller’s Wife with real intellectual integrity." - Durrell Barnes
-"In Dr Jacob Fortune, Michael Kerr Scott has created the ‘Indiana Jones of the mind’ - a time-travelling psychotherapist hell-bent on unearthing the treasures of literary history by getting inside the heads of those who were there when it happened. Join him as he gets forensic on the machinations of Macbeth. - Richard Sunderland
The Scottish King: Macbeth and the Psychotherapist
A Novel
Michael Kerr Scott
Available in paperback October 2024
ISBN 9781915115331 HB £19.99 Order
ISBN 9781915115348 eB £ 9.99 Order
ISBN 9781915115607 PB £ 9.99 Order
216 x 140mm. 258 pp.
Edward Everett Root Publishers Co. Ltd.
EER