Grief

 Maggie O'Farrell's latest book, Hamnet, is about William Shakespeare's son, Hamlet. Hamnet died when he was eleven years old, from the plague. But William is in the background.  The story is about the grief of Hamnet's mother, Agnes.  William is grieving also, but his way of dealing with it is to go away and immerse himself in his plays.  It's the mother's grief that we read, we feel, and sympathize with.

This is historical fiction, and we learn how the people lived in the 1500s.  Their daily chores, their mores, their politics, their hopes and dreams.  We are taken to the beginnings of William and Mary's first encounter.  Their courtship, their marriage, and life thereafter.  No one put much faith in William's ability to become a good wage earner or succeed in a vocation. His family were glovers.  He helped sell the gloves.  But on a sales trip to London, he went to a play.  The rest is history.

William and Agnes lived in a little apartment, attached to the Shakespeare's house.  The entire extended family ate together.  The story involves everyone.  Agnes first, gives birth to a daughter, named Susanna.  A few years later, she gives birth to twins, Judith and Hamnet.  The twins love each other, so much so that when Judith becomes sick, Hamnet is distraught.  He ends by praying to take her place.  If someone is to die, let it be him.  

His prayers are answered.  

As you can imagine, the family is devastated, especially the mother.  She wasn't around when sickness came.  She was the last to arrive at the scene.  She had been off wool-gathering in the woods.  Once, home, she over reacted, if a mother can ever do such a thing, and was so busy tending to Judith, that she didn't, she never, noticed that Hamnet was sick, too.  As Judith seemed to revive, Hamnet seemed to decline. Agnes ministrations were too late, he died.  From then on, Agnes blamed herself.  She was known as a healer.  She who could heal others, could not heal her son.  Worse, she didn't think he was that sick.  She was too late.  Too late coming home, too late noticing what was happening, too late administering medicine, and just too late to be of use.  

The author writes beautifully.  Her descriptions are distinct pictures.  She conveys emotions with raw, profound, anguish. It is no wonder that Hamnet won the Women's Fiction Prize for 2020.