Hamnet / Olive Again

by Maggie O'Farrell, Elizabeth Strout

Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Maggie O'Farrell (born 1972, Coleraine Northern Ireland) is a British author of contemporary fiction, who features in Waterstones' 25 Authors for the Future. It is possible to identify several common themes in her novels - the relationship between sisters is one, another is loss and the psychological impact of those losses on the lives of her characters.

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding and beautifully written story. I felt so enmeshed in this story that I hated it to end. Also, I don't think I have ever read such a completely compelling description of grief as the one in this story. I am now rereading the book and have recommended it to all my friends. It will be difficult to find another book as good as this one any time soon.

[Teri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved, loved, loved this book! While I am no Shakespeare scholar (read Romeo and Juliet and King Lear in High School and have enjoyed several outdoor performances of lesser known works) this book left me wanting to know EVERYTHING about the man and the influences on his work. As O'Farrell points out, little is actually know about his personal life: just some dates and names. And while much has been written speculating what his family life must have been like, this new perspective was both intriguing and plausible. The woman did her research. And for knowing the ending before reading the book (Shakespeare has a son who dies young), I absolutely got chills at the book's end. Best book I've read in years.

[Milo Hoffman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know this book has excellent recommendations from many experts, but I absolutely hated the book. I read about 40 books a year and it is rare that I do not finish one I start, especially when I get as deep in as I was in this one. I kept reading because I said I had to be wrong since so many people liked the book, but I finally decided that I was not going to waste one more minute of my reading time with something I didn’t like at all. A lot of it had to do with the authors writing style.

[elizabeth george · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read.

[Debbie Char · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad, slow. Interesting premise, though.

[Jan Finkelstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book to read

[Susan Wishart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maggie o'Farrell has produced an entertaining, instructive and well researched fictional account of William Shakespeare and his family. The concentrated and extremely detailed narrative centres on the death of eleven year old Hamnet Shakespeare. From the early days of William's marriage to Agnes he is absent in London making his name as a playwright while she, an illiterate country girl, learns to live and bring up her much loved daughter Susanna and twins Judith and Hamnet while living with her husband's deeply enmeshed family and intolerant and aggressive father-in-law.
The themes of love, marriage and overwhelming grief and its effects make this a very readable novel.