Title: Hamnet
Author: Maggie O’Farrell
Genre: historical fiction
PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt: a book that has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction
This book has quite a bit of buzz around it. And as much as I love Shakespeare, I’m not a fan of historical fiction. However, this book didn’t read like a historical book to me. Aside from the actual time period, this book really is just about a family, which could have taken place at any time. The death and subsequent grief of losing a child is universal.
From Goodreads: 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.
This story is beautifully written. Somehow O’Farrell manages never to write the words William or Shakespeare in the entire book. He’s always the husband, brother, father, uncle, or playwright. Agnes really is the center of this story. Once she is married, her story takes over. The love she has for nature and her children is clear. And although her husband is away a lot doing “things” in London, Agnes is a survivor, dealing with her house, her children, and her pain. The death of Hamnet levels her to the ground. She manages to find her way out, but the climb is excruciating.
As great as this book is, I just didn’t LOVE love it. But I completely understand how others do. It was just my personal preference. Hamnet deserves all the awards it won, and I definitely will be recommending it. I just didn’t connect with it in a way I had been expecting.
Pleasant Nights 