Book Review: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

The thing that most stood out to me in reading Hamnet is Maggie O’Farrell’s writing. I admire it so much. She has a way of sitting, living, and moving at the same pace as her characters rather than rushing from plot point to plot point (as I tend to do in my own writing). She takes a moment to just check in with her characters, and it’s never boring. And her writing is so detailed. For example, how did she imagine a chalk smear in the shape of a comma that appears on Hamnet’s cheek after school? So random, and that kind of detail gave the writing charm. That was probably my favorite part about the book.

But I also really appreciate the premise and the novel’s structure. The chapters alternate between Hamnet’s story and flashbacks of how his parents grew up, met, and married. The majority of the first timeline takes place across the span of two days (if I remember correctly), which was all it took for the black plague to take a hold of Hamnet and kill him. Which isn’t a spoiler, by the way. You know on the very first page that Hamnet is going to die and inspire Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The rest of the novel explores the grief of the family after Hamnet’s death, particularly of his parents. O’Farrell portrays their grief so well, how it pulls them apart and brings them back together again. The grief of a mother is always heartbreaking, and O’Farrell wrote it palpably. The scenes of Agnes having to deal with her only son’s death were the most striking of the entire novel.

This is a story about Shakespeare without being a story about Shakespeare at all. The events are inspired by real events (Shakespeare did have a son who died at 11 years old, though cause of death is unknown), but O’Farrell doesn’t mention Shakespeare by name once. He is always referred to as the father, the husband, etc. The main character of the novel isn’t even Hamnet. It’s his mother, Agnes (more commonly known in real life as Anne Hathaway). Prior to reading, I read a lot of reviews that raved about Agnes’ character and how she was a real gem in literature, but I didn’t fall in love with her. I didn’t dislike her either, though I’ve also read reviews that claim she’s too perfect and cliche, but O’Farrell’s treatment of her didn’t grate at me at all. That was pretty much how I felt about all the characters: I didn’t fall in love with any of them though they were all well developed and I didn’t dislike any of them, but I did love reading their story through the beautiful writing, and I did connect with Agnes’ grief, even if I wasn’t head over heels for her character.

The last scene of the novel binds Hamnet to Hamlet, and I won’t say how since I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I’m not sure I fully bought the connection. However, I do really appreciate the attempt, and I think it is a beautiful stretch. It kind of makes me want to reread Hamlet with the light of this novel in mind just to see if it can convince me. Whatever the real reason Shakespeare wrote Hamlet using his son’s name, I think I like O’Farrell’s justification.