Hamnet

by Maggie O’Farrell

Overall: I was late to the Hamnet party.  To be honest, this book sat by my bedside for months.  I have a hard time reading stories about dying children and Hamnet’s age (11) put him squarely between by two girls.  I wish I had not put it off!  This novel deserves every bit of praise it has received.  In case you’ve managed to miss it, it’s the story of the family of a certain (unnamed) young man from Stratford who becomes a major playwright in Elizabethan England.  The novel jumps back and forth in time between the end of his son Hamnet’s life and his courtship and relationship with his remarkable wife.

Likes: O’Farrell’s writing style is nothing short of amazing.  I love Hilary Mantel and this book evoked her style and the Wolf Hall trilogy in the best possible way for me.  The characters will be vaguely familiar to anyone who has read about Shakespeare’s life but feel fresh and new.  O’Farrell evokes this lost world of the sixteenth century through details that call out to all five senses.  I could smell Agnes’ herb garden, feel the cold of the driving rain, hear the cackle of chickens in the yard.  Although the story is sad, it ends with uplifting notes of hope.

Dislikes: really nothing.  I had a hard time putting this one down.  As a writer, I hope one day my best sentence could be as good as one of O’Farrell’s worst in this book.

FYI: There are a couple of brief scenes of child abuse.  Death of a child (obviously) and childhood illness.  Death of a parent.  Difficult childbirth.