Everyone knows Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of friendship and betrayal, love and jealousy: Othello. But the real story lies deep in the culture and biases of Venice and the childhood of a young man named Iago who could not escape his status as “runt of the litter” in his family nor his “distasteful” tendencies toward honesty that made him a social outcast.

In Nicole Galland’s I, Iago we follow Iago from his childhood days playing pranks with young, naive Roderigo to falling in love with Emilia to betraying his closest friends and family, sealing his fate as one of the most notorious villains of all time.