Hamnet

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Fiction

2021 Vintage Books (first published in 2020)

Finished on February 1, 2022

Rating: 5/5 (Excellent!)

Publisher's Blurb:

A thrilling departure: A short, piercing, deeply moving new novel from the acclaimed author of I Am, I Am, I Am, about the death of Shakespeare's eleven-year-old son Hamnet--a name interchangeable with Hamlet in fifteenth-century Britain--and the years leading up to the production of his great play.

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ominous threat infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The of days is near, but life always goes on. A young Latin tutor--penniless and bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family's land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing and seductive, an impossible-to-put-down novel from one of our most gifted writers.

Hamnet is the first book I've read by Maggie O'Farrell and it won't be the last. I was somewhat concerned that this popular novel had been overhyped, but it lived up to all of the accolades and then some. I wasn't discouraged by the slow start and the fact that I continue to reflect on the story and O'Farrell's lyrical writing is reason enough for my 5-star rating. I am disappointed that I missed my book group's discussion of this remarkable book, which has inspired me to seek out more information about Hamnet's mother. I'm also planning to reread Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks' historical novel about the 1666 bubonic plague. I agree with Brooks' praise for O'Farrell's writing:

[O'Farrell] has a melodic relationship to language. There is a poetic cadence to her writing and a lushness in her descriptions of the natural world... We can smell the tang of the various new leathers in the glover's workshop, the fragrance of the apples racked a finger-width apart in the winter storage shed.... As the book unfolds, it brings its story to a tender and ultimately hopeful conclusion: that even the greatest grief, the most damaged marriage, and the most shattered heart might find some solace, some healing. 

In addition to learning about Shakespeare's family, I enjoyed the chapter devoted to an imagined path in which the plague travels from the island of Murano to Warwickshire, England during the summer of 1596. Each encounter and turn of events involving fleas, rats, a monkey, the crew of a ship, a cabin boy and a box of Venetian glass beads makes for a page-turning read. 

While this is Agnes' story, each of O'Farrell's main characters is fully realized and plays important roles in this rewarding novel. My heart broke for Hamnet's parents, but I felt even more sadness for his twin sister, Judith. Her grief is palpable and heart-rending; to lose a sibling, let alone a twin, has to be one life's greatest cruelties.

I'm looking forward to reading more by Maggie O'Farrell and will undoubtedly read this one a second time. What a gem!