Hamnet | Review

Hamnet Published by Vintage Books by Maggie O'Farrell
on March 31, 2020
Genres: Adult, European Literature, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical
Pages: 320
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
Find the Author: Website, Goodreads
Find the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

ISBN: 1984898876

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Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, HAMNET is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.
Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.
Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

I went into this book knowing that it was a favorite of many people–the reviews that I’ve read have all been stellar. So, naturally, since I had the book on hand already, I picked this one for one of my book clubs.

Hamnet is a book that takes place in the later part of the 16th century, in England, during the plague. As everyone reading this has more than likely read or heard about the infamous plague, I don’t need to go into the gruesome details of what the plague was like. Also, O’Farrell does a pretty excellent job of that, herself.

She brings the plague to the reader in both a physical and emotional way that even Boccaccio’s Decameron failed to touch.

O’Farrell wrote Hamnet as a kind of fictional version of Shakespeare’s (who is never directly mentioned by name) later life and that of his family. More specifically, the tale surrounds his wife Agnes and their children; Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet.

It was unanimous in our book club how evocative O’Farrell’s writing is in regard to grief. The vicarious mourning that most of us went through, reading this book, was consuming. So, while this is a story of how the famous playwright and his wife lost a child–and the subsequent fallout of that loss–I felt the most impressed by the author’s portrayal of the way the different family members each handled their grief at this loss.

This is a spoiler-free review, so I don’t want to get into the specifics. Let me just say, that as a mother, Agnes is someone I found myself relating to in a way that was painful. What’s worse than losing a child? And, for those that know a bit about the history of Shakespeare and his marriage–What could be worse than suffering that grief mostly alone?

A beautiful, haunting book that I am so glad to have read. The writing was explicit in its descriptions even at the most mundane moments. I may not ever want to read this again, due to the emotional effect it had over me, but I feel better for having read it the once.

 

 

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