The Story of a Marriage is an intimate meditation on the unknowability of other people, even people we love, as in spouses, friends, or relatives. A housewife in mid-20th Century San Francisco assumes that she understands her husband, knows who he is, and knows he loves her. This challenging novel is an example and an exercise in finding out how wrong such assumptions are bound to be. As stiff a challenge as this piece was to write, Andrew Sean Greer handles all the structural and all the narrative-order...
October 21, 2023
"Hamnet" by Maggie O'Farrell
In Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell takes on the staggering task of imagining Shakespeare’s family life in the 1580s and ‘90s, and particularly, the devastating effect of the 1596 death of his son Hamnet, aged only eleven years. In the face of this forbiddingly risky enterprise she executes a stunning, bravura narrative of the Bard’s family milieu before and particularly after this tragic event. She sets this framework up and aligns it with events we sketchily know about; the result is a vivid, emotional,...
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