Page 31 - FWG October Issue 2025

Book Reviews

The Girl with the Suitcase The Warrior By Any Other Name
By Lesley Pearse By Christopher Clarey By Jodi Picoult

When Mary meets a glamorous An intimate, original biography of tennis Emilia Bassano is allowed no voice of
stranger named Elizabeth, she legend Rafael Nadal, and the first to cover his her own but finds a way to secretly
realises their lives couldn’t be more entire career. bring her work to the stage. Yet by
different. Elizabeth is beautiful and paying a man for the use of his name,
CLICK charming, about to set off on a After his award-winning look at Roger she will write her own out of history.
Federer, Christopher Clarey, one of the world’s
dazzling adventure to Ireland, where
His name? William Shakespeare.
she’s inherited a grand house. Mary, pre-eminent tennis writers, focuses his lens
HERE TO shy and meek, has nothing to look on Nadal, the Spanish force of nature. When Present-day Manhattan. Young
forward to but the dreary life of a he arrived on the scene in 2005, the record for playwright Melina Green is
VIEW maid in Hampstead. men’s singles titles at the French Open stood determined to see one of her shows
at six. Nadal more than doubled that total to make the stage, but it appears a
But when an air raid forces them to a mind-blowing 14 titles: one of the greatest woman’s voice is still worth less than
take shelter underground, Mary’s life sporting achievements in history. a man’s. So inspired by the life of her
is suddenly changed forever. After ancestor Emilia Bassano, she takes
waking up in the hospital, injured Nadal won big and won often on all of tennis’s a lesson from history and submits a
but alive, the nurse mistakes her surfaces: securing two Wimbledon titles on play under a male pseudonym . . .
for Elizabeth and hands over her grass and six on the US Open and Australian
suitcase with Elizabeth’s money and Open hard courts. But clay, the grittiest of Women have long been written out
tickets to Ireland inside. the game’s playgrounds, is where it all came of history, but have they held the
together best for his whipping forehand and pen all along?
This is Mary’s chance to escape the warrior mindset.
hardship of her life and start afresh. Price: R275.00
Clarey, who has covered Nadal since he was
Price: R380.00 17, draws on interviews over 20 years with
Nadal, his team and rivals like Roger Federer
and Novak Djokovic. Brimming with behind-
the-scenes insight, The Warrior tells the story
of a global sporting icon, interlacing man and
place in a unique, must-read account of the
evolution of excellence.

Price: R485.00

Fourways Gardens • 29 • October 2025