Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Tinder Press, 2020
In her author’s note at the end of the novel, Maggie O’Farrell explains that Shakespeare’s wife Agnes (Anne) Hathaway lived with their three children Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith in Henley Street, Stratford. This much is known. It is also known that Hamnet and Hamlet are the same name, that Hamnet died in 1596, aged eleven (cause unknown) and that four years later his father wrote Hamlet. In Hamnet, O’Farrell imagines the cause to be The Black Death, caught first by his twin who survived and then by Hamnet who did not. The novel re-creates Agnes’ life, her family, her courtship, her marriage and her motherhood. Above all it is an exploration of her visceral grief in the death of her son. Shakespeare is not named in the novel, he is simply the son, the husband or the father. He is, though, wholly realised in these roles, (however unsatisfactorily he may play them), as is the grief that drives him away from Agnes to London and to his work. It is a beautifully and carefully written novel, almost play-like in its scene setting and the re-creation of Agnes’ significant experiences. One reviewer called it “A thing of shimmering wonder”; the writing is intricate, immersive and haunting. There was barely any dissent about Hamnet, just a sense on the part of one or two readers that the denouement was handled a little abruptly but overall, an excellent read.