Review: All’s Well by Mona Awad

As a former Dramatic Literature major, I was very much looking forward to Mona Awad’s  recently published novel All’s Well (August 2021), which revolves around Miranda Fitch, a Theater Studies professor at a New England university staging a production of All’s Well That Ends Well, one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays.  Miranda is a former professional actor whose career was ended by a fall from the stage while playing Lady Macbeth.  After some hip surgeries, she is still dealing with chronic pain and with doctors who don’t take her seriously. Her colleagues also think that she is exaggerating her symptoms. One of her closest friends even tells her that perhaps her illness is in her mind.  As the novel begins, she is also dealing with mutinous students who are upset that she has chosen to produce All’s Well, rather than Macbeth as they had wanted.  The mutiny is led by Miranda’s nemesis, a student named Briana who always gets the leading roles because her parents are major donors to the Theater program.

At a bar one night Miranda meets three men who call themselves “The Weird Brethren” (reminiscent of the three witches in Macbeth). These men tell her that they will give her the ability to transfer her pain to someone else just by touching them.  A few days later, while trying to grab a script from Briana, she touches her on the wrist, leading to Briana becoming very ill with symptoms much like those that Miranda experienced.

While dealing with the serious subject of chronic pain and how doctors are often dismissive of it–especially female pain– Awad’s novel is also extremely funny at times. The scene in the Dean’s office in which Briana accuses (a now suddenly healthy) Miranda of being a witch and using sorcery to make her ill is particularly well done.  The entire novel is told from Miranda’s point of view which leaves it unclear to the reader which of the events are happening in reality and which are distortions of Miranda’s mind. 

All’s Well is an extremely apt title choice. Besides referring to the Shakespeare play, the novel is centrally concerned with questions of health and wellness.  This double meaning of “well” is extremely important to the novel’s impact.  At many points in the narrative, the reader wonders exactly how much is real and about the status of Miranda’s mental health.  This narrative effect has also caused some other reviewers to label the novel as being sometimes incoherent, especially in the second half.  While I agree that it was sometimes hard to make sense of the plot, I personally did not find this to be too distracting.

Overall, I would highly recommend All’s Well to fans of Shakespeare and of Theater more generally.  I will now seek out Awad’s other writings, starting with her acclaimed novel Bunny.  Look out for a review of that soon.