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Henry Henry
Henry Henry is a queer reimagining of Shakespeare's Henriad, transposing the legend of Henry V's wayward youth into 21st-century Britain in the years leading up to the Brexit referendum.
Henry Henry follows Hal Lancaster—22, gay, Catholic—as he spends his first years out of Oxford floating between internships, drinking with his actor friends, struggling through awkward hook-ups, and occasionally going to confession to be absolved of his sins.
When a grouse shooting accident-—funny in retrospect—makes a romance out of Hal's rivalry with fumblingly leftist family friend Harry Percy, Hal finds that he wants, for the first time, to be himself. But his father Henry is an Englishman: he will not let his son escape tradition. To save himself, Hal must reckon not only with grief and shame but with the wounds of his family's past.
Henry Henry follows Hal Lancaster—22, gay, Catholic—as he spends his first years out of Oxford floating between internships, drinking with his actor friends, struggling through awkward hook-ups, and occasionally going to confession to be absolved of his sins.
When a grouse shooting accident-—funny in retrospect—makes a romance out of Hal's rivalry with fumblingly leftist family friend Harry Percy, Hal finds that he wants, for the first time, to be himself. But his father Henry is an Englishman: he will not let his son escape tradition. To save himself, Hal must reckon not only with grief and shame but with the wounds of his family's past.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published April 16, 2024
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19028 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 662 reviews
May 12, 2025
The best modern Shakespeare re-telling since She's The Man
June 30, 2025
this is like if ottessa moshfegh wrote a brandon taylor book.
and also shakespeare is somehow involved, i guess. i (like many people who dare to call themselves bookworms) have not read any of shakespeare's history monarch-y plays, so much of the henriad retelling was lost on me even though i very bravely read the wikipedia.
like moshfegh (more so than melissa broder), it delights in being crass and gross-out without being cheerful about it. i thought it was very good, if a little shallow in places, which is a critique i have of moshfegh and not at all of taylor.
if anything with taylor it's the opposite. please stop being so deep about everything. i'm haunted by a description of an underenjoyed potluck submission i read 3 years ago.
anyway.
my only other real thought about this is that no one on earth could possibly eat as much lamb as these people do. is that how you have to be rich in britain? maybe i'm ok with being a middle class american after all.
anyway again.
bottom line: i read this 2 months ago but it still stands out for me. even if a lot of that is lamb.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
and also shakespeare is somehow involved, i guess. i (like many people who dare to call themselves bookworms) have not read any of shakespeare's history monarch-y plays, so much of the henriad retelling was lost on me even though i very bravely read the wikipedia.
like moshfegh (more so than melissa broder), it delights in being crass and gross-out without being cheerful about it. i thought it was very good, if a little shallow in places, which is a critique i have of moshfegh and not at all of taylor.
if anything with taylor it's the opposite. please stop being so deep about everything. i'm haunted by a description of an underenjoyed potluck submission i read 3 years ago.
anyway.
my only other real thought about this is that no one on earth could possibly eat as much lamb as these people do. is that how you have to be rich in britain? maybe i'm ok with being a middle class american after all.
anyway again.
bottom line: i read this 2 months ago but it still stands out for me. even if a lot of that is lamb.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
July 22, 2024
a fabulously fucked and faggy rejigging of the Henriad, as boorish and biting as Martin Amis at his peak.
___________
07/24
read again in prep for an in-conversation i chaired with bratton that happened at burley fisher, still think this is great
___________
07/24
read again in prep for an in-conversation i chaired with bratton that happened at burley fisher, still think this is great
July 29, 2024
a modern, queer retelling of shakespeare’s henriad. very well-written and witty and sad and god it made me depressed
April 28, 2024
Well. Well! Well...
Henry Henry is a queer retelling of the Henriad, set in 2014 and following Hal, heir to the Dukedom, as he does copious amounts of cocaine, gets shot in the face, drinks to excess, falls into bed with people for various self-destructive reasons, and fucks his father who's been abusing him since he was a young teenager. Inconsistently interspersed between descriptions of these activities are too many details about his dead not-quite-uncle Richard.
The most painful part of this novel, contrary to some reviews, is not that the characters are bad people (some of them are; others are closer to just being pathetic), nor that the abuse is too upsetting (the book would be better if it was more upsetting). Rather, the most painful part of this novel is that the (American) author was very clearly on Tumblr in 2014, and the book's mentions of how annoying and tedious Catholic converts and London tourists are only serve to lampshade the narrator's immaturity and mimetic approach to adaptation.
A few quotes to illustrate what I mean:
This second is the book's opening paragraph.
It's not a crime to be a bit of a teaboo (forgive the term, but in my defense, it's appropriate for the 2014-on-Tumblr milieu we find ourselves in). But the book seeks to reinterpret the Henriad in service of interrogating trauma, queerness, Catholicism, and modern aristocracy. A narrative voice that sounds like an American undergraduate explaining the aristocracy to a friend who didn't have a Mitford phase just flat-out does not work in context. There are also lines I'm shocked weren't caught during edits; at the end of a frankly beautifully written paragraph describing all the many ways someone could vomit after having drunk to excess, there is this unbelievable clunker: "It was like doing penance when you had already been punishing yourself." I counted three "as you know, sir, [long infodump]"s as well. These are predictable missteps for a debut, but they were avoidable.
Unfortunately, the narrator's immature voice can't be explained just by Hal being in his early 20s. Consistently throughout the book, characters are talking about "drugs": doing them, acquiring them, sharing them. Coke and molly are occasionally mentioned by name, but for the most part people as disparate as background characters and Hal himself are saying things like "are you doing drugs? Can I have some?" I haven't been a young person since, well, 2014, but I was never around anyone who spoke like that. It's very jarring, and it lends the vivid, well-written descriptions of cocaine-related septum damage a pallor of Wikipedia.
The narration itself is often confused. For the most part this book is a relatively close 3rd person POV. There are inconsistencies, however, that again should have been caught and fixed; in one chapter, the narrator gives us a spontaneous description of Hal's father Henry's thoughts, and a few chapters later we are once again treated to a description of Henry's thoughts, but carefully informed that such an observation was possible because Hal could briefly see him. This is a book where both the unreliable narrator's dissociation from and his intimate relationship to his abusive father are key themes driving the narrative forward and shaping our understanding of Hal: you can't let us see the drywall tape.
Speaking of themes. The book is being billed as "about" queerness, Catholicism, and abuse. The original Henriad was "about" kingship and civil war. So there is a lot of ground to cover in terms of making the reader feel the stakes of the narrative and the texture of the protagonist's world.
This is a book that manages to be both rigorously and incoherently Catholic. On the one hand, you have a Dukedom whose family members are uncompromisingly and unpopularly Catholic. Their Catholicism impacts their finances and marriage prospects (which are, of course, their finances). Henry prays eight times a day "like a Benedictine". Hal is obsessed with authority. They go to confession. They are married by the priest who knows the groom is fucking his son. They observe Lent. Hal believes in the literal truth of the Bible and that he is damned for coitus outside marriage. Etc.
But it's a weird setup, because the book is set in this our modern age; the aristocrats here behave mostly like any squabbling wealthy family would. Henry "gives up" things for Lent sometimes but doesn't fast. Hal experiences Catholic mysticism at the well-edited beginning and end of the book but forgets God for long stretches in the middle. Being spiritually Protestant and mentally agnostic while observing the traditions of Roman Catholicism make perfect sense for aristocrats in times and places where such a thing was expected regardless of personal belief. That is not true of England today, and it wasn't true of England in 2014, either. I would expect an extremely religious modern family to articulate modern religious fervor. For the most part, Hal's family doesn't.
There is also a more troubling issue with the book's Catholicism. In the bulk of the novel, church is something that happens off the page. There are a few scenes where Hal attends services; his confessions are largely summarized. The scenes describing the service are focused on the Lana-to-Red-Scare-pipeline, which is to say Tumblr, aesthetics: the incense, the communion, the wine. But Hal himself thinks of his abuse in specifically Catholic terms. Henry is the father; Hal is the son. Hal is commanded by God to submit to Henry. Hal is Henry's seed, an extension of himself. And then of course there are the pedophile priests. Point of order, as someone raised in an SBC stronghold: the authority which leads to religious abuse and religious justification of incestuous abuse is not restricted to any given sect, denomination, or religion. To focus so intently and yet so shallowly on Catholicism is to point a reductive lens at the abuse you're attempting to describe as a product of authority.
In some passages, the author handpuppets long enough to uneasily inform us that he knows about Northern Ireland, about imperialism, that his characters are Tories, and so on. Again: Tumblr! So I want to be clear that I'm not saying he should have Henry Percy say, "And obviously of course Catholics aren't uniquely abusive." There is a throughline of Hal being specifically lonely both in his queerness and in the precise shape of his abuse. All of these aristocrats hurt each other, but Hal and his father are trapped in a particularly grody bit of amber. I would have preferred that the rambling sentences dedicated to exclusively drawing parallels between Hal's Catholicism and his relationship with his father were not some of the only times the book directly looks at Hal's understanding of the abuse. Again, this is a point of view issue: Hal is repressed and thinking around the issue to the very last page. If you're going to break that affect to represent his understanding of things, you need to do a bit more groundwork establishing that Hal is not the only child in the entire world being raped by his father.
The abuse itself, both the actual sex scenes and Hal's mental state throughout the novel, is very well written. I don't agree with reviewers who think the sex is intended to be shocking. I would assume the author put a lot of thought into this portrayal; either care shows on the page or it was manufactured so effectively that it's a distinction without a difference. The incestuous relationship isn't just character background, though; it's one of the novel's main sources of dramatic tension, and when evaluated through this lens, the project stumbles again. Hal does not end this novel in a hard break with Henry (and if you thought he would, baby, they created New Adult just for you). Through the back half of the book, however, he does come to assert his independence from his father, and we leave him having just told his father no. A story of alienation and rebuilt selfhood whose denouement is an assertion of agency is a perfectly good story to tell, but it's not really an adequate replacement for succession drama and civil war, and this book is so dedicated to being a reinterpretation of the Henriad that the reader is asked to sit through multi-page explanations of how people came to fuck each other roughly how they did in 1410, in 1978.
What I find most striking about this ending is that for the first half of the book, we're treated to a description of debauchery that rivals Cat Marnell's memoir. Hal is fracturing under the weight of what his father's done to him, and what he sees himself as having done with his father. This conflict creates excellent dramatic tension, a claustrophobic sense of dread. You know something is terribly wrong, and you're starting to realize you know what's wrong, and it's sickening. This is great! But it does mean that when Hal starts changing, in fits and starts, the novel's main sources of tension become familial drama, horrifying sex, and the intersections thereof. This massively weakens the novel to the point that a dramatic brawl at Henry's wedding is a quick skim-read.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the back half of the novel is also where we are asked to care about pages and pages of people talking about Richard, a character who was dead before the book began. I have over one million words of fanfiction posted to AO3 so believe me when I say, I know what a ficcer losing focus in their WIP and bringing in another fave looks like.
I will end this review on a positive note. As I mentioned, the beginning and end of the novel are much tighter than the middle. There are passages that are truly beautiful. Bratton's command over point of view specifically with regards to dissociation, repression, and trauma are genuinely breathtaking. I would not be writing this review if the glimpses of a much better book didn't make the moments of slobbering over old buildings while the characters 'pip-pip-wot-wot' their way through doing 'drugs' so infuriating. But, ultimately, it's a 1:4 ratio, and as they say where I'm from, that dog ain't gonna hunt.
Henry Henry is a queer retelling of the Henriad, set in 2014 and following Hal, heir to the Dukedom, as he does copious amounts of cocaine, gets shot in the face, drinks to excess, falls into bed with people for various self-destructive reasons, and fucks his father who's been abusing him since he was a young teenager. Inconsistently interspersed between descriptions of these activities are too many details about his dead not-quite-uncle Richard.
The most painful part of this novel, contrary to some reviews, is not that the characters are bad people (some of them are; others are closer to just being pathetic), nor that the abuse is too upsetting (the book would be better if it was more upsetting). Rather, the most painful part of this novel is that the (American) author was very clearly on Tumblr in 2014, and the book's mentions of how annoying and tedious Catholic converts and London tourists are only serve to lampshade the narrator's immaturity and mimetic approach to adaptation.
A few quotes to illustrate what I mean:
Hal shook the coke out onto a plastic-backed hand mirror, which, when it was not being used for drug-taking, Hal used in the service of trimming the hair around his balls.
At Jack’s flat, he let you smoke indoors. Hal went out for a fag anyway and saw that the sun had risen; there was warm spring light on him. He walked up the road against a perpetual flow of small children in embroidered jumpers and rounded collars, and got on a bus that would take him northwest across the Thames. The sun was on his right shoulder and his temple was on the window. He struggled to fix his eyes on the back of the man in front of him. His own stink hovered about him: skunky weed, spilled Pimm’s and gin, cigarettes smoked in a flat that had had a lot of cigarettes smoked in it before, the vile mix of sweat and deodorant that had congealed under his armpits and was soaking through his pale blue oxford shirt. Sensing he was about to feel very bad, he took his aviators off the neck of his shirt and put them on his face. The bus was passing across Vauxhall Bridge; the sun was in the scummy green water, making it look almost translucent, as if it were more water than filth. Literally the most fucking beautiful thing, he thought. Here I am in London in the twenty-first century, and there’s the Thames that was there when the first Duke of Lancaster was born, and there’s the long-lived sun.
This second is the book's opening paragraph.
It's not a crime to be a bit of a teaboo (forgive the term, but in my defense, it's appropriate for the 2014-on-Tumblr milieu we find ourselves in). But the book seeks to reinterpret the Henriad in service of interrogating trauma, queerness, Catholicism, and modern aristocracy. A narrative voice that sounds like an American undergraduate explaining the aristocracy to a friend who didn't have a Mitford phase just flat-out does not work in context. There are also lines I'm shocked weren't caught during edits; at the end of a frankly beautifully written paragraph describing all the many ways someone could vomit after having drunk to excess, there is this unbelievable clunker: "It was like doing penance when you had already been punishing yourself." I counted three "as you know, sir, [long infodump]"s as well. These are predictable missteps for a debut, but they were avoidable.
Unfortunately, the narrator's immature voice can't be explained just by Hal being in his early 20s. Consistently throughout the book, characters are talking about "drugs": doing them, acquiring them, sharing them. Coke and molly are occasionally mentioned by name, but for the most part people as disparate as background characters and Hal himself are saying things like "are you doing drugs? Can I have some?" I haven't been a young person since, well, 2014, but I was never around anyone who spoke like that. It's very jarring, and it lends the vivid, well-written descriptions of cocaine-related septum damage a pallor of Wikipedia.
The narration itself is often confused. For the most part this book is a relatively close 3rd person POV. There are inconsistencies, however, that again should have been caught and fixed; in one chapter, the narrator gives us a spontaneous description of Hal's father Henry's thoughts, and a few chapters later we are once again treated to a description of Henry's thoughts, but carefully informed that such an observation was possible because Hal could briefly see him. This is a book where both the unreliable narrator's dissociation from and his intimate relationship to his abusive father are key themes driving the narrative forward and shaping our understanding of Hal: you can't let us see the drywall tape.
Speaking of themes. The book is being billed as "about" queerness, Catholicism, and abuse. The original Henriad was "about" kingship and civil war. So there is a lot of ground to cover in terms of making the reader feel the stakes of the narrative and the texture of the protagonist's world.
This is a book that manages to be both rigorously and incoherently Catholic. On the one hand, you have a Dukedom whose family members are uncompromisingly and unpopularly Catholic. Their Catholicism impacts their finances and marriage prospects (which are, of course, their finances). Henry prays eight times a day "like a Benedictine". Hal is obsessed with authority. They go to confession. They are married by the priest who knows the groom is fucking his son. They observe Lent. Hal believes in the literal truth of the Bible and that he is damned for coitus outside marriage. Etc.
But it's a weird setup, because the book is set in this our modern age; the aristocrats here behave mostly like any squabbling wealthy family would. Henry "gives up" things for Lent sometimes but doesn't fast. Hal experiences Catholic mysticism at the well-edited beginning and end of the book but forgets God for long stretches in the middle. Being spiritually Protestant and mentally agnostic while observing the traditions of Roman Catholicism make perfect sense for aristocrats in times and places where such a thing was expected regardless of personal belief. That is not true of England today, and it wasn't true of England in 2014, either. I would expect an extremely religious modern family to articulate modern religious fervor. For the most part, Hal's family doesn't.
There is also a more troubling issue with the book's Catholicism. In the bulk of the novel, church is something that happens off the page. There are a few scenes where Hal attends services; his confessions are largely summarized. The scenes describing the service are focused on the Lana-to-Red-Scare-pipeline, which is to say Tumblr, aesthetics: the incense, the communion, the wine. But Hal himself thinks of his abuse in specifically Catholic terms. Henry is the father; Hal is the son. Hal is commanded by God to submit to Henry. Hal is Henry's seed, an extension of himself. And then of course there are the pedophile priests. Point of order, as someone raised in an SBC stronghold: the authority which leads to religious abuse and religious justification of incestuous abuse is not restricted to any given sect, denomination, or religion. To focus so intently and yet so shallowly on Catholicism is to point a reductive lens at the abuse you're attempting to describe as a product of authority.
In some passages, the author handpuppets long enough to uneasily inform us that he knows about Northern Ireland, about imperialism, that his characters are Tories, and so on. Again: Tumblr! So I want to be clear that I'm not saying he should have Henry Percy say, "And obviously of course Catholics aren't uniquely abusive." There is a throughline of Hal being specifically lonely both in his queerness and in the precise shape of his abuse. All of these aristocrats hurt each other, but Hal and his father are trapped in a particularly grody bit of amber. I would have preferred that the rambling sentences dedicated to exclusively drawing parallels between Hal's Catholicism and his relationship with his father were not some of the only times the book directly looks at Hal's understanding of the abuse. Again, this is a point of view issue: Hal is repressed and thinking around the issue to the very last page. If you're going to break that affect to represent his understanding of things, you need to do a bit more groundwork establishing that Hal is not the only child in the entire world being raped by his father.
The abuse itself, both the actual sex scenes and Hal's mental state throughout the novel, is very well written. I don't agree with reviewers who think the sex is intended to be shocking. I would assume the author put a lot of thought into this portrayal; either care shows on the page or it was manufactured so effectively that it's a distinction without a difference. The incestuous relationship isn't just character background, though; it's one of the novel's main sources of dramatic tension, and when evaluated through this lens, the project stumbles again. Hal does not end this novel in a hard break with Henry (and if you thought he would, baby, they created New Adult just for you). Through the back half of the book, however, he does come to assert his independence from his father, and we leave him having just told his father no. A story of alienation and rebuilt selfhood whose denouement is an assertion of agency is a perfectly good story to tell, but it's not really an adequate replacement for succession drama and civil war, and this book is so dedicated to being a reinterpretation of the Henriad that the reader is asked to sit through multi-page explanations of how people came to fuck each other roughly how they did in 1410, in 1978.
What I find most striking about this ending is that for the first half of the book, we're treated to a description of debauchery that rivals Cat Marnell's memoir. Hal is fracturing under the weight of what his father's done to him, and what he sees himself as having done with his father. This conflict creates excellent dramatic tension, a claustrophobic sense of dread. You know something is terribly wrong, and you're starting to realize you know what's wrong, and it's sickening. This is great! But it does mean that when Hal starts changing, in fits and starts, the novel's main sources of tension become familial drama, horrifying sex, and the intersections thereof. This massively weakens the novel to the point that a dramatic brawl at Henry's wedding is a quick skim-read.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the back half of the novel is also where we are asked to care about pages and pages of people talking about Richard, a character who was dead before the book began. I have over one million words of fanfiction posted to AO3 so believe me when I say, I know what a ficcer losing focus in their WIP and bringing in another fave looks like.
I will end this review on a positive note. As I mentioned, the beginning and end of the novel are much tighter than the middle. There are passages that are truly beautiful. Bratton's command over point of view specifically with regards to dissociation, repression, and trauma are genuinely breathtaking. I would not be writing this review if the glimpses of a much better book didn't make the moments of slobbering over old buildings while the characters 'pip-pip-wot-wot' their way through doing 'drugs' so infuriating. But, ultimately, it's a 1:4 ratio, and as they say where I'm from, that dog ain't gonna hunt.
January 25, 2026
As a very, very young child, having just developed the faculties of coherent speech and consciously directed movement, Hal used to play a game: he approached whatever he saw nearby, a mannequin or statue or stranger, and asked, ‘Are you my mother?’ He wasn’t so stupid that he genuinely believed any of these things might really be his mother, but when he asked the question there was always a thrilling uncertainty as to what the answer might be. Perhaps he was mistaken: perhaps the thing in front of him was his mother, and the thing he thought of as his mother was something else. Looking at Henry, Hal felt the impulse to ask, ‘Are you my father?’ As if Henry were a mannequin or statue or stranger, as if Hal expected the answer to be ‘no’ and feared the answer to be ‘yes’.
ninety percent in my boyfriend asked me how it’s going and i said “it’s a very good book” and he looked at me and was like “??? all you’ve done is complain so far???”
very well written, very fucked up, will stay with me for a while, don’t ask me to verbalise a coherent thought though, i fear being known
read 2x
ninety percent in my boyfriend asked me how it’s going and i said “it’s a very good book” and he looked at me and was like “??? all you’ve done is complain so far???”
very well written, very fucked up, will stay with me for a while, don’t ask me to verbalise a coherent thought though, i fear being known
read 2x
June 9, 2025
C’était trop nul j’suis choqué
December 7, 2023
✰ 3.25 stars ✰
“I was in love. I didn’t want anything. That’s how you know you’re happy, that’s what happiness means.”
Allen Bratton's debut novel Henry Henry is a loosely based retelling of Shakespeare's Henriad plays. I can't say for sure just how accurate a retelling it is or how much of it was inspired by the characters from those works, but what I can tell you is this.
“In dreams, other people seemed like other people, even though they were only presences you’d invented without knowing it.
Was waking life like that, or was it inverted, so that your self was only a branch of the same substance that made everything else up?”
This story centers around Hal Lancaster and the relationship he has four distinctive points in his life - each which directly affects the other. It is his strained relationship with the father, Henry, who sexually abused him as a child, it is his pained attempt at meaningful intimacy with one of his childhood acquaintances, even when they both agree to keep it casual, it is his tainted visits to the Catholic Church where he reflects on the hypocrisy of his actions, and the bond he shares with his siblings, mainly his younger sister, who can see that there is something troubling him, yet it's just not possible for him to express it. And yet, somehow, as we navigate our way through Henry's life, each of these facets directly affect the other in a spiral of events into his subconscious and the moments in his life that shape him into the man he will be. 👌🏻👌🏻
“If we become great friends, maybe it will have been worth it. Then when we’re old we can tell the story of how none of it would have happened if I’d been in good form.’
‘You want to be my great friend? What do you think you’ll get out of it?’
‘Human connection? Have you heard of it?’
‘Why with me, though?’
‘Sometimes I think I quite like you,’ said Percy.”
Hal's voice was that of a profound thinker or a man riddled with lust and crazed drug inhibitions, while also seeking out solace of someone who he could confide in - relate to. And that came in the form of Percy earnest, impassable, un-checkable - their chemistry while fueled by availability and latent heat, it never progressed into anything deeper, despite how much both of them could have - if they had not been hampered by their own personal issues. 'Hal held an unlit cigarette above his head. As Percy lifted up to grab at it, Hal kissed him back – badly, because he, Hal, was smiling.' 😥 There was a familiarity of ease with them, that despite how much Hal was annoyed by Percy's antics, he still was drawn to him.
And that's something that saddened me - clearly, they liked each other, it was not just a means to an end to get off, but Hal was so conflicted with his own problems - he never could go beyond that threshold - that he couldn't allow himself to believe that what he shared with Percy - was love. 🥺 The remorse of failure in his efforts to make Percy matter because of that weight on his shoulders - it was sorrowful - not heart-breaking, just sad - and it was captured so well in this one moment, where Henry is so torn over his father's past abuse of him - still haunted and traumatized by it - and yet, still wanting to embrace Percy as a part of his history, he wished to forget - to overcome.
“Unfailingly polite, except for when he wasn’t, Percy took off his shoes before throwing himself onto Hal’s bed.
Hal thought, Now you’ve lain in the bed where it happened. How does it feel? He didn’t want to tell him.
Just by being there, not knowing, he was making the place clean again.”
This scene tore through my skin - uff, it was really the stand-out scene - the tipping point, and I was just - immaculately captured - I could see Hal's torment right here - so visible to the discerning eye. 😢😢 I always felt that his heart was in the right place, even when he felt him spiraling out of control, he never intentionally wanted to ever hurt anyone; he just was dealt a bad hand time and time again. There was a fine balance between wistful absolution and mocking contempt in his visits to the Church that really resonated with me. 'Thanks be to God.’ Hal said it like someone politely accepting a terrible gift: Thank you, but I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want it. Will you take it back? If you really loved me, you would have given me something else.'
That ache in his heart that he accepted that his sexuality is something heavily frowned upon in the light of the Lord, yet he had no way to change it - who he is. For even years after the first attempt his father made him as a target - even now, he's still a victim to him - helpless in front of him - both to succumb to his advances, his taunts, and his comments. 😞 Oh, his father infuriated me so - the emotional manipulation of knowing how to rile up his son, knowing that he can play with his feelings - banking on his silence to keep silent about everything and continuously hurt him. The complexity of Hal's feelings over his father - torn between wanting to please him as a son, and wanting to keep away from him for how he treated him as a son - it was heart-breaking and jarring and really carried the majority of the story for me.
“Hal said, ‘I’m going to be better than you think I am.’
‘How would you know? How would I?’
‘You don’t trust me?’
Leaning close, Henry said, ‘Never mind. I don’t want to hear you promise anything. I’ve heard enough. I’ve had enough from you.”
One fierce complaint I did have was the usage of so many characters with the name of Henry! Perhaps it was a whimsical nod to Shakespeare's plays, but it made it sometimes rather confusing for me to discern which particular character was speaking at the time. One Henry there, another there - it got confusing, okay? 🙎🏻♀️ As the conclusion draws near, I wish there could have been a scene that captured the visceral reaction to a significant reveal - it would have very neatly tied up the story, in my opinion.
And yet, despite my issues, it was not hard to follow Hal's train of thought; as he waded his way through drugs, confessions, drunken stupors, passionate bliss and paternal rage, his voice was still very lucid. I understood his pains, his grievances, his inability to function rationally and also his failure at successful relationships. Odd, isn't it? The writing is strong in the way it makes you feel what Henry is feeling. Again, some of the most powerful moments were with his father - that man knew exactly how to get under Henry's skin and he toyed with his emotions - time and time again. 💔💔
It is a credit to Allen Barton's writing that there never came a point where I could not understand what he was trying to achieve. Sometimes literary works become too abstract for me to follow, but here, it was very lucid, surprisingly. And that is something that I felt warranted appreciation. I do wish the ending hadn't been so abrupt - okay, it wasn't abrupt, but the story did not quite wrap. Hal did not attain happiness, and so in turn, I, too, did not get closure to all that he had experienced, and it made me accept that his story was indeed a tragedy of Shakespearean levels. 👏🏻
*Thank you Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
“I was in love. I didn’t want anything. That’s how you know you’re happy, that’s what happiness means.”
Allen Bratton's debut novel Henry Henry is a loosely based retelling of Shakespeare's Henriad plays. I can't say for sure just how accurate a retelling it is or how much of it was inspired by the characters from those works, but what I can tell you is this.
“In dreams, other people seemed like other people, even though they were only presences you’d invented without knowing it.
Was waking life like that, or was it inverted, so that your self was only a branch of the same substance that made everything else up?”
This story centers around Hal Lancaster and the relationship he has four distinctive points in his life - each which directly affects the other. It is his strained relationship with the father, Henry, who sexually abused him as a child, it is his pained attempt at meaningful intimacy with one of his childhood acquaintances, even when they both agree to keep it casual, it is his tainted visits to the Catholic Church where he reflects on the hypocrisy of his actions, and the bond he shares with his siblings, mainly his younger sister, who can see that there is something troubling him, yet it's just not possible for him to express it. And yet, somehow, as we navigate our way through Henry's life, each of these facets directly affect the other in a spiral of events into his subconscious and the moments in his life that shape him into the man he will be. 👌🏻👌🏻
“If we become great friends, maybe it will have been worth it. Then when we’re old we can tell the story of how none of it would have happened if I’d been in good form.’
‘You want to be my great friend? What do you think you’ll get out of it?’
‘Human connection? Have you heard of it?’
‘Why with me, though?’
‘Sometimes I think I quite like you,’ said Percy.”
Hal's voice was that of a profound thinker or a man riddled with lust and crazed drug inhibitions, while also seeking out solace of someone who he could confide in - relate to. And that came in the form of Percy earnest, impassable, un-checkable - their chemistry while fueled by availability and latent heat, it never progressed into anything deeper, despite how much both of them could have - if they had not been hampered by their own personal issues. 'Hal held an unlit cigarette above his head. As Percy lifted up to grab at it, Hal kissed him back – badly, because he, Hal, was smiling.' 😥 There was a familiarity of ease with them, that despite how much Hal was annoyed by Percy's antics, he still was drawn to him.
And that's something that saddened me - clearly, they liked each other, it was not just a means to an end to get off, but Hal was so conflicted with his own problems - he never could go beyond that threshold - that he couldn't allow himself to believe that what he shared with Percy - was love. 🥺 The remorse of failure in his efforts to make Percy matter because of that weight on his shoulders - it was sorrowful - not heart-breaking, just sad - and it was captured so well in this one moment, where Henry is so torn over his father's past abuse of him - still haunted and traumatized by it - and yet, still wanting to embrace Percy as a part of his history, he wished to forget - to overcome.
“Unfailingly polite, except for when he wasn’t, Percy took off his shoes before throwing himself onto Hal’s bed.
Hal thought, Now you’ve lain in the bed where it happened. How does it feel? He didn’t want to tell him.
Just by being there, not knowing, he was making the place clean again.”
This scene tore through my skin - uff, it was really the stand-out scene - the tipping point, and I was just - immaculately captured - I could see Hal's torment right here - so visible to the discerning eye. 😢😢 I always felt that his heart was in the right place, even when he felt him spiraling out of control, he never intentionally wanted to ever hurt anyone; he just was dealt a bad hand time and time again. There was a fine balance between wistful absolution and mocking contempt in his visits to the Church that really resonated with me. 'Thanks be to God.’ Hal said it like someone politely accepting a terrible gift: Thank you, but I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want it. Will you take it back? If you really loved me, you would have given me something else.'
That ache in his heart that he accepted that his sexuality is something heavily frowned upon in the light of the Lord, yet he had no way to change it - who he is. For even years after the first attempt his father made him as a target - even now, he's still a victim to him - helpless in front of him - both to succumb to his advances, his taunts, and his comments. 😞 Oh, his father infuriated me so - the emotional manipulation of knowing how to rile up his son, knowing that he can play with his feelings - banking on his silence to keep silent about everything and continuously hurt him. The complexity of Hal's feelings over his father - torn between wanting to please him as a son, and wanting to keep away from him for how he treated him as a son - it was heart-breaking and jarring and really carried the majority of the story for me.
“Hal said, ‘I’m going to be better than you think I am.’
‘How would you know? How would I?’
‘You don’t trust me?’
Leaning close, Henry said, ‘Never mind. I don’t want to hear you promise anything. I’ve heard enough. I’ve had enough from you.”
One fierce complaint I did have was the usage of so many characters with the name of Henry! Perhaps it was a whimsical nod to Shakespeare's plays, but it made it sometimes rather confusing for me to discern which particular character was speaking at the time. One Henry there, another there - it got confusing, okay? 🙎🏻♀️ As the conclusion draws near, I wish there could have been a scene that captured the visceral reaction to a significant reveal - it would have very neatly tied up the story, in my opinion.
And yet, despite my issues, it was not hard to follow Hal's train of thought; as he waded his way through drugs, confessions, drunken stupors, passionate bliss and paternal rage, his voice was still very lucid. I understood his pains, his grievances, his inability to function rationally and also his failure at successful relationships. Odd, isn't it? The writing is strong in the way it makes you feel what Henry is feeling. Again, some of the most powerful moments were with his father - that man knew exactly how to get under Henry's skin and he toyed with his emotions - time and time again. 💔💔
It is a credit to Allen Barton's writing that there never came a point where I could not understand what he was trying to achieve. Sometimes literary works become too abstract for me to follow, but here, it was very lucid, surprisingly. And that is something that I felt warranted appreciation. I do wish the ending hadn't been so abrupt - okay, it wasn't abrupt, but the story did not quite wrap. Hal did not attain happiness, and so in turn, I, too, did not get closure to all that he had experienced, and it made me accept that his story was indeed a tragedy of Shakespearean levels. 👏🏻
*Thank you Edelweiss for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
April 25, 2024
When I say I'm a mood reader, it's really more like I'm a magpie. I like to collect interesting little trinkets, am pulled in by a cover and skimming of a synopsis. Though here telling me that you're taking on the Henriad but set in the lead up to the Brexit Referendum doesn't really mean much to me. I'm going on vibes alone.
Don't be like me, whatever it is you do, don't do that.
So much of what this book has to say is wrapped up in the complicated sexual abuse that is going on between our two Henry's; so if reading about parental sexual abuse isn't your jam this might not be a book you should pick up. It's also the kind of thing I wouldn't want anyone else blindsided with.
That said this book is hardly the first queer text tackles sexual abuse themes, Young Mungo and A Little Life instantly come to mind.
Maybe I've just evolved as a reader in the time since reading those, but Henry Henry worked in a way that I found really compelling.
Henry finds himself the eldest child sort of just drifting through life. Over the course of the narrative we explore him feeling connected to Richard and the way that seeing Richard being so ostracized for being unambiguously queer coupled with his own Catholic hangups has left him in this self loathing feedback loop. A loop compounded by the complicated relationship he has with the father that is continuing to abuse him, even as he enters a stage of his life where he is frail. We see Henry upset with himself for still allowing this to continue, fearing for the ways he could share traits with his father. All while navigating his first serious relationship that also never quite feels like it's going anywhere but forces Henry to be even more self reflective than he already was.
In some ways this book felt far longer than the three hundred odd pages it is, and that's in part because Bratton manages to cover a lot of ground and always gives the narrative a sense of forward progression even in scenes that could feel like they are unimportant side quests. It has some of my favorite prose of the year and I look forward to what Bratton comes out with next as an author.
Don't be like me, whatever it is you do, don't do that.
So much of what this book has to say is wrapped up in the complicated sexual abuse that is going on between our two Henry's; so if reading about parental sexual abuse isn't your jam this might not be a book you should pick up. It's also the kind of thing I wouldn't want anyone else blindsided with.
That said this book is hardly the first queer text tackles sexual abuse themes, Young Mungo and A Little Life instantly come to mind.
Maybe I've just evolved as a reader in the time since reading those, but Henry Henry worked in a way that I found really compelling.
Henry finds himself the eldest child sort of just drifting through life. Over the course of the narrative we explore him feeling connected to Richard and the way that seeing Richard being so ostracized for being unambiguously queer coupled with his own Catholic hangups has left him in this self loathing feedback loop. A loop compounded by the complicated relationship he has with the father that is continuing to abuse him, even as he enters a stage of his life where he is frail. We see Henry upset with himself for still allowing this to continue, fearing for the ways he could share traits with his father. All while navigating his first serious relationship that also never quite feels like it's going anywhere but forces Henry to be even more self reflective than he already was.
In some ways this book felt far longer than the three hundred odd pages it is, and that's in part because Bratton manages to cover a lot of ground and always gives the narrative a sense of forward progression even in scenes that could feel like they are unimportant side quests. It has some of my favorite prose of the year and I look forward to what Bratton comes out with next as an author.
May 16, 2024
This novel is an absolute masterpiece and goes straight to my all-time favourites. The audiobook was superb. Strongly recommended – I didn't want it to end.
July 24, 2024
Although it may look like a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Henry IV (there's a Richard, a Henry, a younger Henry, and a drunken Falstaff), it is perhaps more accurate to imagine Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited but with the relentless self-abasement of Garth Greenwell's Cleanness and the sadomasochistic melodrama of Hanya Yanigahara's A Little Life. Bratton's Henry Henry tells the story of Hal, the wayward chain-smoking son and heir-to-be of Lord Henry, the duke of Lancaster, who himself had only inherited the title after his brother, Richard, died of AIDS. Hal is a gay, unemployable, twenty-something coke-addict, a now notorious bad-boy of the aristocracy, and yet still a guilt-ridden Catholic who regularly attends Mass each week and compulsively confesses all his "sins against the sixth" to his priest. While Hal may engage in risky behavior with licentious abandon, promiscuous sex and unrestrained drinking, he is full of shame. He is gay but he could never imagine himself marrying a man, both because he is Catholic and because of his family's dynastic tradition. The plot is a spiraling litany of traumas—incest, abuse, assault—and self-destructive behaviors—meaningless sex, self-harm and mutilation, and dangerous drug-fueled benders. He enjoys humiliation (in one moment, he thinks "he let him fuck his throat because he was making a gift of his own debasement"), as if the sex itself has become an act of penitence rather than of pleasure.
But for all his self-loathing, Hal has clear self-insight. He is never confused about his sexuality but, in fact, often understands his queerness and his sexual desires with disarming clarity. Reflecting on the grueling regime of his boarding school, the constant pressure to succeed, to be a star athlete, a studious academic and a saintly acolyte, all the while suppressing his true sexuality, he thinks to himself, "He'd put up with it because he thought it was what everybody did: that they had to earn their privilege through the violent extraction of natural selves". He resents a "bi-curious" friend who could fly through it. Hal's upbringing, religion and noble heredity have warped his perspective on what a healthy self looks like: shame and self-hate, for him, seem to be the ruling habits of the upper class. Hal's shame, however, does not make him repressed, ignorant or naive. In one moment during phone sex, he complains about his boyfriend who, having dated only women previously, views penetration as an act of conquest and ownership ("You're always going on about marking me and claiming me", Hals says, "and wanting everyone to know I'm yours, and I let you come inside me and that's what a woman does and that means I'm subordinate to you by nature, and you've planted a flag in me"). He might be ashamed about being gay but he is also critical and savvy about what it means to be gay and to be a bottom. He is an enigmatic figure: a self-hating and equally self-understanding gay man. Although his homophobia is thoroughly internalized, his homosexuality is not unexamined.
It's a tawdry work of Catholic fiction, however. Hal is somewhat like Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited, the decadent aesthete who retires to a Spanish monastery to die after a life of hedonism—but both Henry and Hal seem like grotesquely hyperbolic versions of Catholic sanctimony. Without giving much away, Henry, the judgmental authoritarian patriarch of the family commits heinous acts of abuse and then minimizes them, as if the sacrament of confession is a get-out-of-gaol card. He suffers guilt but never expresses remorse, makes confession but never shows real scruples. His whole character seems like the old-school Protestant stereotype of Catholic villainy, using papal dispensation and priestly absolution to excuse any act of evil—I am reminded of the crazed self-flagellating albino assassin of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code who commits murder and then atones for it by wearing a cincture. For all his own self-insight, Hal seems unable to think or talk about Catholicism with any depth and he yo-yos between devoutness and debauchery without much reflection. In both characters, Bratton draws an absurdly implausible caricature of Catholic guilt and shame.
But for all his self-loathing, Hal has clear self-insight. He is never confused about his sexuality but, in fact, often understands his queerness and his sexual desires with disarming clarity. Reflecting on the grueling regime of his boarding school, the constant pressure to succeed, to be a star athlete, a studious academic and a saintly acolyte, all the while suppressing his true sexuality, he thinks to himself, "He'd put up with it because he thought it was what everybody did: that they had to earn their privilege through the violent extraction of natural selves". He resents a "bi-curious" friend who could fly through it. Hal's upbringing, religion and noble heredity have warped his perspective on what a healthy self looks like: shame and self-hate, for him, seem to be the ruling habits of the upper class. Hal's shame, however, does not make him repressed, ignorant or naive. In one moment during phone sex, he complains about his boyfriend who, having dated only women previously, views penetration as an act of conquest and ownership ("You're always going on about marking me and claiming me", Hals says, "and wanting everyone to know I'm yours, and I let you come inside me and that's what a woman does and that means I'm subordinate to you by nature, and you've planted a flag in me"). He might be ashamed about being gay but he is also critical and savvy about what it means to be gay and to be a bottom. He is an enigmatic figure: a self-hating and equally self-understanding gay man. Although his homophobia is thoroughly internalized, his homosexuality is not unexamined.
It's a tawdry work of Catholic fiction, however. Hal is somewhat like Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited, the decadent aesthete who retires to a Spanish monastery to die after a life of hedonism—but both Henry and Hal seem like grotesquely hyperbolic versions of Catholic sanctimony. Without giving much away, Henry, the judgmental authoritarian patriarch of the family commits heinous acts of abuse and then minimizes them, as if the sacrament of confession is a get-out-of-gaol card. He suffers guilt but never expresses remorse, makes confession but never shows real scruples. His whole character seems like the old-school Protestant stereotype of Catholic villainy, using papal dispensation and priestly absolution to excuse any act of evil—I am reminded of the crazed self-flagellating albino assassin of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code who commits murder and then atones for it by wearing a cincture. For all his own self-insight, Hal seems unable to think or talk about Catholicism with any depth and he yo-yos between devoutness and debauchery without much reflection. In both characters, Bratton draws an absurdly implausible caricature of Catholic guilt and shame.
May 25, 2024
Probably closer to a 3.5. I was quite excited for this one, and it wasn’t fully up to what I’d hoped. However, I still breezed through it and know I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
Read
January 17, 2026Hmm ... I'm conflicted about this one. It starts interestingly enough; you're thrown into an atmosphere of dense malaise, drug and alcohol use (and abuse), and trauma with a capital T centered around Hal, one of several aristocratic Henrys/Harrys in the book. The dysfunction is high all around, wrapped up in trauma response and nobles behaving badly. I was genuinely shocked at about 50 pages in during one scene (maybe look up some trigger warnings if you need to first). Unfortunately, I felt like we never really went anywhere else from there and were just kind of spinning in circles from one tense family dinner or drug-fueled party scene to the next. Dialogue stays punchy and interesting throughout, but the writing in a lot of the segments of interiority and setting/transitional description felt needlessly wordy and dense at times. This definitely caused the pace to feel glacial toward the midway point. I can't comment on how effectively "Henry Henry" augmented Shakespeare's Henriad (maybe I would have been more impressed if I had read some of those plays first). After about 200 pages I had to push myself to finish.
I grabbed a physical copy of this from the bookstore when it came out in paperback, but I think I'll be donating it or gifting it to someone else. I was hoping to keep my copy and add it to my growing collection of queer stories, but I just don't see myself reading it again.
I grabbed a physical copy of this from the bookstore when it came out in paperback, but I think I'll be donating it or gifting it to someone else. I was hoping to keep my copy and add it to my growing collection of queer stories, but I just don't see myself reading it again.
June 6, 2024
Henry Henry started off fairly interesting before falling off a cliff. Our main character Hal makes some brash decisions but given his history and childhood, I guess it makes sense? This is literary to the T — the good and the terrible of the genre lurk within this novel.
November 20, 2025
On my blog.
CWs: sexual abuse, incest, self harm, religious homophobia, past death due to AIDS complications
Galley provided by publisher
I haven’t always, it has to be said, had the best of times with classics retellings. Much of the time, they feel superficial, like the author’s taken the plot beats of the original without absorbing any of the themes. Henry Henry, on the other hand, is very refreshing. The plot is, to an extent, recognisably that of Henry IV, Part One, but it’s transferred into a modern era in a way that feels thought out.
Before I get into reviewing this proper, it is worth checking out the content warnings for this one. It deals with sexual abuse, incest, self harm and religious homophobia, so, while I would highly recommend it, do bear that in mind!
First things first, this is not a book full of likeable characters (neither is the play, if we’re being honest. Although I’m sure Shakespeare did kind of want you to like Hal by the end, being as he was, related to John of Gaunt and therefore Henry Tudor and Shakespeare’s subsequent monarchs-slash-patrons). But what Allen Bratton does so well is make them compelling — in a car-crash-you-can’t-look-away-from sense in Hal’s case, but compelling nonetheless. And yeah, by the end you do feel a bit of sympathy for them. A tad.
In terms of plot, it’s very much character-driven. Which is great when you have characters who compel you in this way! You keep reading because you want to watch them make disasters of everything, but you also want them to redeem themselves at least a bit in the end. So the plot, really, is just the character development.
Of course, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of not much plot (in fact, you might even argue, I’m still like this at times!), but what really helps here is the writing. I’ve used the word compelling a lot in this review so far but I do think it the most fitting one. And part of that compellingness comes down also to the writing. From the very first line, I knew I would enjoy this book and that’s because the writing was so good. It feels crafted in a way that a lot of books don’t at the minute, on a writing level. Every word carefully chosen.
So I hope this review has convinced you to give this book a shot. Even if you’re not a Shakespeare fan, even if you know nothing about Henry IV & V, this is one not to be missed.
CWs: sexual abuse, incest, self harm, religious homophobia, past death due to AIDS complications
Galley provided by publisher
I haven’t always, it has to be said, had the best of times with classics retellings. Much of the time, they feel superficial, like the author’s taken the plot beats of the original without absorbing any of the themes. Henry Henry, on the other hand, is very refreshing. The plot is, to an extent, recognisably that of Henry IV, Part One, but it’s transferred into a modern era in a way that feels thought out.
Before I get into reviewing this proper, it is worth checking out the content warnings for this one. It deals with sexual abuse, incest, self harm and religious homophobia, so, while I would highly recommend it, do bear that in mind!
First things first, this is not a book full of likeable characters (neither is the play, if we’re being honest. Although I’m sure Shakespeare did kind of want you to like Hal by the end, being as he was, related to John of Gaunt and therefore Henry Tudor and Shakespeare’s subsequent monarchs-slash-patrons). But what Allen Bratton does so well is make them compelling — in a car-crash-you-can’t-look-away-from sense in Hal’s case, but compelling nonetheless. And yeah, by the end you do feel a bit of sympathy for them. A tad.
In terms of plot, it’s very much character-driven. Which is great when you have characters who compel you in this way! You keep reading because you want to watch them make disasters of everything, but you also want them to redeem themselves at least a bit in the end. So the plot, really, is just the character development.
Of course, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of not much plot (in fact, you might even argue, I’m still like this at times!), but what really helps here is the writing. I’ve used the word compelling a lot in this review so far but I do think it the most fitting one. And part of that compellingness comes down also to the writing. From the very first line, I knew I would enjoy this book and that’s because the writing was so good. It feels crafted in a way that a lot of books don’t at the minute, on a writing level. Every word carefully chosen.
So I hope this review has convinced you to give this book a shot. Even if you’re not a Shakespeare fan, even if you know nothing about Henry IV & V, this is one not to be missed.
May 1, 2024
-- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc!
i find that this novel had alot of potential. in my opinion, much was done well, much could have been done better. and unfortunately, though i feel very conflicted, i did not finish my reading.
this queer retelling of shakespeare's henriad had a good start. though i had difficulties in the beginning to differentiate the characters, the prose was pretty and slightly somber. the aggressively religious environment of hal and his practices had some slight inconsistencies (credentials: i used to go to christian summer camps) but i find it's nothing too dramatic. i think allen bretton did a great job at portraying trauma and repression. the incestuous and sexual abuse is well-written as far i could tell. but then... it kinda dropped in the middle of the novel.
at the end of pretty paragraphs, i would find awkward and clunky sentences that didn't fit. at first the textos were a fright, and god, why would you use emoji in literary fiction? it has its place in YA and thrillers but god, i abhor it in literary fiction... i started noticing that for a novel confronting queerness, abuse and catholicism, the catholic elements were not enough. we should get more confessions, for exemple. the narration was already confusing (is it 3rd? or 1st? are we doing jane austen style?) but as i progress it became jarring. sometimes, it didn't feel like 20 something year-old hal speaking... at this point in my reading, it felt awkward and stunted
i feel everything just dropped and to be honest, it became a drag to read. i'm really sad that my first arc is rather a negative one but i do think allen bratton has alot of potential as an author. i'd say just allen bratton to keep it short, succinct and ofc always pointed (when it comes to themes). for me, it's a 2.5. very middle of the road and no more.
i find that this novel had alot of potential. in my opinion, much was done well, much could have been done better. and unfortunately, though i feel very conflicted, i did not finish my reading.
this queer retelling of shakespeare's henriad had a good start. though i had difficulties in the beginning to differentiate the characters, the prose was pretty and slightly somber. the aggressively religious environment of hal and his practices had some slight inconsistencies (credentials: i used to go to christian summer camps) but i find it's nothing too dramatic. i think allen bretton did a great job at portraying trauma and repression. the incestuous and sexual abuse is well-written as far i could tell. but then... it kinda dropped in the middle of the novel.
at the end of pretty paragraphs, i would find awkward and clunky sentences that didn't fit. at first the textos were a fright, and god, why would you use emoji in literary fiction? it has its place in YA and thrillers but god, i abhor it in literary fiction... i started noticing that for a novel confronting queerness, abuse and catholicism, the catholic elements were not enough. we should get more confessions, for exemple. the narration was already confusing (is it 3rd? or 1st? are we doing jane austen style?) but as i progress it became jarring. sometimes, it didn't feel like 20 something year-old hal speaking... at this point in my reading, it felt awkward and stunted
i feel everything just dropped and to be honest, it became a drag to read. i'm really sad that my first arc is rather a negative one but i do think allen bratton has alot of potential as an author. i'd say just allen bratton to keep it short, succinct and ofc always pointed (when it comes to themes). for me, it's a 2.5. very middle of the road and no more.
May 30, 2024
3.25/ There were things I really enjoyed about this novel and things that left me disengaged.. The writing is good, especially when it comes to voice and interiority-- Hal's POV is very well defined and he is funny in a depressed kind of way. There were stretches of writing that didn't really connect for me and I found myself distracted and questioning character motivations in the latter half. Pretty readable, and I think if it had a stronger structure and MC arc (it just kind of ends), I would've rated higher. On a positive note, the romance subplot was well done and complex and I wish it hadn't kind of tapered off.
June 23, 2024
gay, messy, and depressive, just how I like 'em.
September 23, 2024
I’m not sure what to do with this book. It was kind of grotesque and depressing as fuck. But I couldn’t stop reading it.
January 14, 2026
After reading this, I need to promise myself that the next gay book I read will be a happy one.
——
After my second time reading Henry Henry, I’ve concluded that this is a modern masterpiece. This book lived rent free in my mind since I read it almost two years ago and I’m glad I took the time to re-read it. My rating increased from 4 to 5 stars. I don’t think I fully understood the book on an initial read, but I understand it a lot better now. I felt the entire gamut of emotions when reading this and I was almost moved to tears. I haven’t cried in almost twenty years.
The writing is superb. There are so many stunning sentences and I’m impressed with how well this book flowed. This book is going in my favorite books of all time.
SPOILERS BELOW. STOP READING AT THIS POINT IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS.
I loved spending time with this cast of characters, except for Henry Lancaster. I really despise Henry.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted any fictional characters to be together forever more than I wanted Hal and Percy to be together. Their relationship was hilarious at times and Hal really seemed happy. Unfortunately, because of their life paths, their relationship was probably destined to fail. However, Percy seemed to challenge Hal in helpful ways.
There’s a small glimmer of hope in that maybe one day Hal will confess the truth about Henry. I think it will help heal him.
——
After my second time reading Henry Henry, I’ve concluded that this is a modern masterpiece. This book lived rent free in my mind since I read it almost two years ago and I’m glad I took the time to re-read it. My rating increased from 4 to 5 stars. I don’t think I fully understood the book on an initial read, but I understand it a lot better now. I felt the entire gamut of emotions when reading this and I was almost moved to tears. I haven’t cried in almost twenty years.
The writing is superb. There are so many stunning sentences and I’m impressed with how well this book flowed. This book is going in my favorite books of all time.
SPOILERS BELOW. STOP READING AT THIS POINT IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS.
I loved spending time with this cast of characters, except for Henry Lancaster. I really despise Henry.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted any fictional characters to be together forever more than I wanted Hal and Percy to be together. Their relationship was hilarious at times and Hal really seemed happy. Unfortunately, because of their life paths, their relationship was probably destined to fail. However, Percy seemed to challenge Hal in helpful ways.
There’s a small glimmer of hope in that maybe one day Hal will confess the truth about Henry. I think it will help heal him.
June 8, 2024
me when brandon taylor tells me to do something: 🫡 No but really i read most of this in a frenzy yesterday and already haven't been able to shut up about it because yeah book set in london saturated with shame and god and the shame before god it's just like well. also helps that it's insanely good writing i can't say i've ever attended the henriad and i dont really care about queer retellings as a marketing trope but it's just really fucking excellent. sorry
— “He had thought leaving was meant to feel good. This was freedom: he could do anything it was within his power to do, and though his power was not limitless, it was vaster than his imagination. He didn’t want oblivion, he didn’t want pleasure, he didn’t want freedom: he wanted to go back into his father’s house and lay himself at his father’s feet and say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me,” and do what his father told him, and never sin again, and be loved, and be good, and be clean, and then to rule forever, stainless master of his own domain.”
— “He had thought leaving was meant to feel good. This was freedom: he could do anything it was within his power to do, and though his power was not limitless, it was vaster than his imagination. He didn’t want oblivion, he didn’t want pleasure, he didn’t want freedom: he wanted to go back into his father’s house and lay himself at his father’s feet and say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me,” and do what his father told him, and never sin again, and be loved, and be good, and be clean, and then to rule forever, stainless master of his own domain.”
March 15, 2024
babe why didnt you use a five act structure?
December 7, 2024
4.5… i really don’t have words to describe this book bc it’s so messy and so depressing but the writing is just ✨✨✨✨
August 7, 2025
This is a bad book. Sometimes it’s important to say when something is not good. The story is shaky, it’s technically poorly written, and the voice of the narrator is obviously very naïve. From the relatively confusing ways the characters in this book both procure and do drugs to the seemingly accidental switching of 1st to 3rd person narration, it’s clear that Bratton (American) is smitten with the idea of the UK (has he ever been there)?
I think Henry Henry points to a much larger problem we have with queer lit lately with its protagonists being regularly abused twinks who are monstrously horny, jaded, and sassy. It’s a trope I’m becoming so exhausted with, and this book is a pathetic regurgitation of the same unrelatable themes I’ve had the displeasure of reading many times. Has anyone who’s written a gay novel in the past 20 years ever attempted to make it true to the experience of being queer in the 21st century?
Infuriating, insensitive, poorly researched (regardless of the MA from the unnamed college), technically a mess, sloppy characters, this is a bad book. I’m so mind blown with positive press for this technically poorly organized novel. Someone’s been reading their Moshfegh.
I think Henry Henry points to a much larger problem we have with queer lit lately with its protagonists being regularly abused twinks who are monstrously horny, jaded, and sassy. It’s a trope I’m becoming so exhausted with, and this book is a pathetic regurgitation of the same unrelatable themes I’ve had the displeasure of reading many times. Has anyone who’s written a gay novel in the past 20 years ever attempted to make it true to the experience of being queer in the 21st century?
Infuriating, insensitive, poorly researched (regardless of the MA from the unnamed college), technically a mess, sloppy characters, this is a bad book. I’m so mind blown with positive press for this technically poorly organized novel. Someone’s been reading their Moshfegh.
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March 21, 2024messy. lit fic with a queer, MMC — usually i'm all about the messy girlies but the messy dudes need some appreciation, too.
this is a retelling of shakespeare's henriad, which i have not read, so i have nothing to base this on.
when it comes to henry henry, i think this will either work for you or it won't (although to be fair, i'm somewhere in the middle). our MC is unlikeable and messy, which he's supposed to be. he's young and makes questionable decisions (but who doesn't at 22) and as a reader it's always easy to yell "what are you doing???" when a character is making poor choices.
but that's the point, right? our MC has a lot to figure out and he has a lot of repressed catholic guilt, which i honestly can't imagine how difficult it must be.
at a glance, this was a novel that first truly intrigued me bc the premise sounded right up my alley, but ultimately i had a hard time wanting to pick it up and didn't feel like there was any growth in the character's story.
i would consider giving it another try in the future and read other work by this author. thank you to the publisher for the eARC.
this is a retelling of shakespeare's henriad, which i have not read, so i have nothing to base this on.
when it comes to henry henry, i think this will either work for you or it won't (although to be fair, i'm somewhere in the middle). our MC is unlikeable and messy, which he's supposed to be. he's young and makes questionable decisions (but who doesn't at 22) and as a reader it's always easy to yell "what are you doing???" when a character is making poor choices.
but that's the point, right? our MC has a lot to figure out and he has a lot of repressed catholic guilt, which i honestly can't imagine how difficult it must be.
at a glance, this was a novel that first truly intrigued me bc the premise sounded right up my alley, but ultimately i had a hard time wanting to pick it up and didn't feel like there was any growth in the character's story.
i would consider giving it another try in the future and read other work by this author. thank you to the publisher for the eARC.
July 5, 2024
woah woah woah woah
this was everything and nothing like what i was expecting
rtc
this was everything and nothing like what i was expecting
rtc
February 22, 2025
I deserve a medal for finishing this
August 17, 2025
Ich habe lange überlegt, was ich kommentieren soll und mir ist irgendwie nichts eingefallen. Dann habe ich folgenden Kommentar gefunden:
"I'm not sure what to do with this book. It was kind of grotesque and depressing as fuck. But I couldn't stop reading it."
Und das fässt meine Gefühle bezüglich dieses Buches ziemlich gut zusammen.
"I'm not sure what to do with this book. It was kind of grotesque and depressing as fuck. But I couldn't stop reading it."
Und das fässt meine Gefühle bezüglich dieses Buches ziemlich gut zusammen.
May 23, 2024
4 stars only because I do feel like the final 15 or so pages just kind of putter out into a very half assed ending which was dissapointing after what had been a pretty stellar 5 star read but DESPITE that, this still is THE book to beat for me, this year.
Shakespeare's HENRY plays...but with the sexuality of THE SHARDS
A LITTLE LIFE....but with the humor and complexity of FLEABAG.
I could not get enough of this book. I **loved** Hal in a way that I haven't loved a character in a book in a looong time. And I totally get that this book will be extremely off putting and Hal, a despicable insufferable character for many but oh jesus was he, and this book for me. I cried, CACKLED and even a week after finishing I still miss this book terribly and can't wait to see what Allen Bratton churns out next.
Shakespeare's HENRY plays...but with the sexuality of THE SHARDS
A LITTLE LIFE....but with the humor and complexity of FLEABAG.
I could not get enough of this book. I **loved** Hal in a way that I haven't loved a character in a book in a looong time. And I totally get that this book will be extremely off putting and Hal, a despicable insufferable character for many but oh jesus was he, and this book for me. I cried, CACKLED and even a week after finishing I still miss this book terribly and can't wait to see what Allen Bratton churns out next.
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November 9, 2023I believe it is incredibly difficult to evoke readers' empathy towards characters as profoundly unlikable as Allen Bretton's Hal, but Henry Henry got me. Loosely based on Shakespeare's Henriad, this is a darkly brilliant novel from a fresh new literary talent, bursting with sex and intrigue, and sustained by its lush, observant, and quietly humorous prose.
If you, like me, were pulled in by the premise of Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet but felt underwhelmed by its execution, give this book a chance. And remember: Heaven is a nightclub in London.
If you, like me, were pulled in by the premise of Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet but felt underwhelmed by its execution, give this book a chance. And remember: Heaven is a nightclub in London.
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