Resident Ellyn Loy’s review of Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell [New York: Knopf, 2020] is scheduled for Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 7 PM in the Auditorium.
When I first heard about this book, I thought, “You mean Hamlet, don’t you?” Well, no. Hamnet is a historical fictional account of Shakespeare’s family at the time of his son Hamnet’s death in1596, and the writing of the play Hamlet in 1600. The social and living conditions in Elizabethan England are the setting for the story.
The book begins with a young boy, Hamnet, searching for an adult. His father is off in another town and his mother is off tending her bees. His twin sister Judith is near death from the plague. It is during this crisis that we are introduced to many of the characters. Hamnet’s mother Agnes, the core character, is carefree and spiritual. She mixes potions and heals the sick. His grandfather is an angry, mean man who makes gloves. And Hamnet’s father, who is never named in the book, is known to be William Shakespeare.
The following two narratives evolve: The events leading up to Hamnet’s death and the relationship between Hamnet’s parents. Duality is a core theme – the duality of Hamnet and Judith, twins. The duality between intense grief and intense passion. The constant pull between certainty and doubt. The toil of life on the homestead, and the creative life of the emerging genius in the city.
Judith, the weaker, sick twin, recovers. She and Hamnet switch clothing like they did as children to fool people. Hamnet offers to give his life instead of his sister’s. And so he dies, leaving a family in grief.
Halfway through the book, the author takes a detour to tell the history of the plague. Again, two narratives. One about a bead maker in England who burns his hand, and the other about a cabin boy on a ship with a flea-ridden African monkey. I read this book during the worst of Covid-19. The tale of how the germ spreads is fascinating.
The author builds interesting characters and tells beautiful stories. One memorable passage is when she writes of Hamnet’s death, “There will be no going back. No undoing what was laid out for them. The boy has gone and the husband will leave and she will stay and the pigs will need to be fed every day and time runs only one way.” Themes of loss and grief and yearning for success and family are perceptively interwoven.
Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet won the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
Ellyn Loy, a Charlestown resident, is a clinical social worker and former Clinical Director of The House of Ruth.
Janet Neer and Ellyn Loy, Book Review Coordinators