"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, and utterly believable tale of the composition of Hamlet, the first—and perhaps most personal—of the immortal playwright’s great tragedies.

O’Farrell places us squarely in late 16th-Century Stratford, with vivid people and their fraught relationships; a muddy, smelly backwater town which includes the Shakespeare family and its company of glovers—dominated by John, the brilliant poet’s ostracized two-fisted abusing father. The story of Will and his sweetheart/wife, Agnes (which I, following hints in the text, pronounced with the Continental diphthong, An-yess), while speculation, provides charm, depth, and color. When pestilence strikes its devastating blow and takes their son and heir, Hamnet, the family splinters, and each member (father, mother, two sisters) suffers their own private isolating grief.

The father can turn this personal tragedy into an acclaimed, all-time triumph of art. O’Farrell imagines the immortal playwright doing his very utmost to right the tragic wrong; the production of the play, and an unexpected journey for Agnes form the captivating, gratifying climax.

 

As book-length speculation goes, this novel will stand the test of time. With exceedingly well-known protagonists and events, O’Farrell answers her self-challenge with a work of art of her own. She has fashioned an extraordinary novel: artistic and beautifully paced, she lays it out in a very gracious way that honors her readers; brilliantly does it meet and satisfy the flinty gaze of the expectant reader. So brilliantly that it exceeds any anticipation we might have of plot, result, personality, or setting. Fully, heartily, confidently recommended.