Review: Hamnet

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A BookBrowse copy sent for reading and discussion. A fictional imagining of Shakespeare's early life and marriage in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The focus, however, is not really upon him but rather the family in which he was raised and the young local woman who becomes his wife. Indeed, he is never mentioned by name and once married doesn't appear very often in the narrative. He is an absentee father, living, writing and acting in London as his wife and three children reside in a small home alongside his parent's home. The marriage is loving and warm despite the lengthy seperation between the spouses, until the plague hits them and their young son, Hamnet succumbs at a young age.
The impact of the loss on them and their families is devastating but seems to give rise to one of the most famous plays in English literature.

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