By Morin Bishop, lifetime writer and editor and current co-owner of Womrath Bookshop

May 12, 2021; You won’t find a more gorgeously written book than Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, an engrossing novel about Shakespeare’s family and the tragic death of his son Hamnet, who died of the plague at the tender age of 11. (Hamlet and Hamnet were essentially interchangeable names in Elizabethan England.) The bare historical outlines are present, but O’Farrell’s wondrous imagination brings both William and wife Agnes to vivid life, endowing each with a troubled family history and a rich inner life. William is masterfully drawn, but the real star of the book is the mystical Agnes, one of the most compelling, fully realized protagonists I’ve encountered in recent fiction.

Torn apart by their grievous loss, William and Agnes struggle to find their way back to each other, and as readers, we fervently hope for their reunion, even after Shakespeare leaves Stratford and travels to London to make his name as a playwright and director. The resolution of their relationship and the novel’s intriguing theory on the connection between the play Hamlet—written within months of Hamnet’s death—and the couple’s real-life tragedy are just two of the many joys of this brilliant, unforgettable novel. Don’t miss this one.

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