Book Review: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: July 21, 2020
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

Hamnet is the story of William Shakepeare’s family, centered on his wife Agnes and their children. Shakespeare is never named, referred to as “the tutor” or “the husband”, which serves to emphasize that he is not the focus of this book. When Hamnet, Agnes and William’s only son, suddenly dies of the Plague, they find themselves at loose ends, each dealing with their grief in their own way.

In much of the book, William lives away from his family in London, writing and performing his plays. His family stayed behind in the village he grew up in because his youngest daughter is too frail to survive the germs of the big city. After Hamnet’s death, we follow Agnes’s grief journey while she is largely alone. It’s a heart-wrenching exploration of what it’s like to lose a child. Agnes struggles to go on, while her husband is seemingly living it up in London. She wonders if he’s been affected at all by the tragedy.

Little is actually known about William Shakespeare’s personal life. He did have a son who died named Hamnet, which is thought to be a name interchangeable with Hamlet. He is thought to have named the character Hamlet after his son. While it’s not strictly necessary to have read Hamlet before reading this book, I did find it helpful to familiarize myself with the basics of it. I was able to better understand the ending of the book, which involves a performance of the play.

I thought about this book for a long while after I finished it, which to me is a sign of a great novel. The prose was beautiful and raw. I’m looking forward to seeing the movie, which is also supposed to be wonderful.

Highly recommended.