When this book came out, I had zero interest in reading it. I haven’t read any Shakespeare in years, I usually dislike historical fiction, and it seemed like a pretty big commitment. But almost immediately upon its release, the buzz started. It seemed that not only was everyone reading it – everyone who read it was loving it. Then it won the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Then it was chosen as Waterstones’ Book of the Year for 2020. Then it was on the longlist for the BookTube Prize for this year. Then my mum read it and would not stop raving about it. So okay, I caved and decided I might as well read it too.
I have been meaning to read Maggie O’Farrell for a long time. I never expected this to be where I started, but sometimes things just take you by surprise. I managed to get the audiobook of this from my library, and I think the performance increased my enjoyment of the book.
For the very few who don’t know, this story is an imagining of Shakespeare’s family – particularly his wife, Agnes. The book swaps back and forth between the beginning of their relationship and the day their son Hamnet got sick. As the book progresses, the timelines converge, and then the former passes the latter and takes us through the aftermath of Hamnet’s death.
The writing has to be first on the list of my favourite aspects of the book. It was detailed and evocative – O’Farrell manages to evoke the sights, sounds and smells of an earlier time perfectly. Some readers have found it overly descriptive, but I thought it was purposefully whimsical and poetic. The characters are brought to life and rendered down to the particular shade of an eye or tilt of a head. I also enjoyed the plot. It had me hooked, and I kept wanting to know what was going to happen next. It was evenly paced and balanced out that tremendous detail with enticing twists and turns.
I loved how O’Farrell hops between strands of her story with a deft ease that makes it feel effortless. She sets the stage for illness, she teases out the particular elements of each character and she traces how each event in their lives leads to the next. Her writing enabled me to feel what her characters were going through and understand the challenges of the time and world they lived in. It is historical fiction, but she made me feel like I was a contemporary of the characters, that I could step into their world, as carefully described as it was. No detail was left out, and the result is a richness of setting against which her characters come to life.
We spend most of the book with Agnes and her twin children – Hamnet and Judith. The two are deeply connected, and we experience their bond. We also see the love the mothers in this book have for their families, and the various relationships – both easy and challenging – that encircle them. When Hamnet succumbs to his illness (not a spoiler – it’s freely stated as the premise of the book) the effect of his death on everyone around him is immense. As anyone familiar with Shakespeare’s work will put together, the play Hamlet is based on his death in this fictionalized account (I’m not sure if this is true to historical fact or not).
Of course, there’s no way to assess the accuracy of O’Farrell’s account, but it felt like a whole world unfurling around me as I read. I liked that she focused primarily on Agnes. I imagine many historians have studied Shakespeare’s life, but I would guess few have looked at his wife. In fact, Shakespeare is never named in this book. He is referred to as husband, writer, son – never by name.
It would be difficult not to enjoy this book if you’re a fan of great storytelling, wonderful writing, Shakespeare or historical fiction. Any one of those is enough to make it a winner. If you’re a fan of all four, this is definitely going to be a new favourite. I was completely drawn in and hooked within the first few pages, and that feeling only intensified as I read. The book stayed with me when I wasn’t reading, and kept me up late when I should have been asleep.
As you can probably tell, I was very impressed with this book – in no small part because of its ability to draw me in when I had no natural interest in any part of it. It’s not perfect – there are questions that were never answered, gaps in time that are never filled in (probably on purpose, but I ended up with things I would have liked to understand better), but it’s extremely good. I’d love to hear from any of you who have read it. If it’s completely your type of book, did it hit the mark for you? If you’ve read O’Farrell in the past, how does this rank against her other books? If, like me, you went into this dragging your feet a bit, did you end up enjoying it as much as I did? Did you have any issues with it?
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. – Goodreads
Book Title: Hamnet (or Hamnet and Judith – title in North America)
Author: Maggie O’Farrell
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook/Hardback
Published By: Headline Publishing Group
Released: July 21, 2020
Genre: Fiction, History, Women’s Lives, Loss
Pages: 384
Date Read: March 8-11, 2021
Rating: 8/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.34/5 (43,275 ratings)
Hamnet is a wonderful audiobook! Not a book I was originally interested in reading, either, but I think it was a book blogger somewhere along the way whose review made me put a hold on it from the library.
I’m so pleased I was convinced to give it a try. I’m thrilled to hear you had a similar experience and loved it as well! The writing was just gorgeous.