Hamnet

By far, my favorite book of 2020, Hamnet, reimagines Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, not as the older spouse who trapped him into a loveless marriage but as the woman I’ve always imagined and wanted her to be – her husband’s match in every way.

Although, having said that, this particular time travel trip wasn’t easy, given that the book opens with a scene of the boy, Hamnet, racing through a village desperately trying to find help for his sister who has been struck down by the plague - a scene that painfully mirrored my own sense of fear and… show more.

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, right? Yes, but why? This wonderful book manages to tell the story of the writing of perhaps the world’s most famous play without mentioning the playwright by name once.

I loved the way the writer focused on his wife and children, and through their stories shows us not only the world that Shakespeare came from but how he became the writer he was. Oh, and if you like a book that will make you cry this really is the one. I’ve rarely read such a powerful description of grief.

In the first few chapters, the book left me cold and unfeeling about the story or characters. But, years ago, I vowed to finish every book I started.

Initially, I felt no connection to Agnes, a strange, eccentric, anti-social protagonist. By mid-story, something happened—an all-in conversion. I felt the very depth of grief that pierced the body and soul of Agnes as a grieving mother. Her ravaged heart touched my own. We all know loss in some form. But the story puts words to an emptiness that, most times, words cannot express. When an author taps into emotions, it’s a… show more.

I love richly realized fiction that doesn’t gloss over or modernize the historical female experience. This book is both unflinching and gorgeous as it digs into the depths of a strong woman’s wounded heart. Agnes (Anne Hathaway) must navigate the neglect of her ambitious and mostly absent husband, William Shakespeare, as she struggles to raise their children virtually alone in 16th-century England.

It broke my heart to witness the powerful, independent young Agnes slowly breaking under the unbearable weight of motherhood. A powerful mother's heart beats in every word of this peerless novel. One of the best books I've read… show more.

I love O’Farrell’s use of language–the depth and the poetry—and have read most of her books. I especially liked this book because I read it shortly after my daughter died in 2020, and the maternal and complicated feelings of Hamnet’s mother (Shakespeare’s wife) are so well rendered.

O’Farrell also has a magical way of recreating a time and a place. I think she’s one of the best writers when it comes to getting into a character’s head, too.

I read my fair share of Shakespeare in school and learned that he left his "second best bed" to his wife, but nothing prepared me for the reality of the Black Death, his life as a young Latin tutor who fell in love with an older woman, and the loss of his son. I love O’Farrell’s writing, beautiful atmospheric prose, and a deep study of what can fracture a family.

I could not put this book down.

I loved the rich, luminous writing that brought characters and scenes to life in Maggie O’Farrell’s evocative, emotionally intense portrait of William Shakespeare’s family. The multisensorial detail of the writing made me feel like an omniscient fly on the wall in various Elizabethan households, observing both the routines of daily life and the wrenching apart of those routines by tragedy, the death of a child.

That child is the novel’s title character, Hamnet, Agnes Hathaway and William Shakespeare’s son. But for me, the star of the novel is Hamnet’s free-spirited mother, Agnes, whom O’Farrell conjures into being with few facts… show more.

“What if?” is a question I often ask myself as a person and as an author. This is why I so loved this book, in which an unassuming young woman marries and has children and then loses one, though the loss of the son brings the talent of her husband to its full potential.

As I get older, I wonder about my choices and the choices life thrusts upon me. What if, after my own husband died, I hadn’t written my first novel? Would I be the same person I am today? What it would be like to be famous?… show more.

I’m a Shakespeare fan from childhood, so this beautifully crafted story of the Bard’s youth and family life intrigued me.

Beguiling is a word I’d use, pulling you in from the first line, “A boy is coming down the stairs,” almost stage directions. The deep understanding of the place and people provides a solid basis for O’Farrell's evocation of Shakespeare’s origins and especially his wife. Left me in tears but also suffused with the pure joy of creation. 

The language is just spell-binding! I have to say the story is slow to develop at the outset, and it took a couple of chapters before I fell in love with it. But once I did, I was entranced.

It tells the story of William Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, and their children from Anne’s viewpoint. As not much is known about his family, the story is the author’s imagining.

As with Shakespeare’s plays, it runs the gamut from love to tragedy and everything in between. It was the winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and I can see… show more.