Neris G’s Reviews > Hamnet > Status Update

Man. I think it lost me. And it was not the flea. It was worse. It was a man. One who will not be named.

“But the magnitude, the depth of his wife’s grief for their son exerts a fatal pull. It is like a dangerous current that, if he were to swim too close, might suck him in, plunge him under.”

He-who-may-not-be-named is ✨selfish✨

“There is a part of her that would like to wind up time, to gather it in, like yarn. She would like to spin the wheel backwards…”

“And Hamnet?”
Twisting the knife

“Anyone…who describes dying as "slipping away" or "peaceful" has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle. The body clings to life, as ivy to a wall, and will not easily let go, will not surrender its grip without a fight.”

A flea POV I never thought I’d need or wanted

“The pestilence has reached her house. It has made its mark around her child's neck.”

“She is dressed like a servant, in coarse and dirty clothes, but speaks like a lady. She is erect in stature, almost of a height with him, her hair dark as his own. She meets his eye as a man would, but her figure and form fill out that jerkin in a manner that is distinctly female.”

“How hard were the bones in the hand of an adult, how tender and soft the flesh of a child, how easy to bend and strain those young, unfinished bones. The doused, drenched feeling of fury, of impotent humiliation, in the long minutes of a beating.”