But never doubt I love

The novel starts by telling us that

Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, entirely interchangeable in Stratford records in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

O’Farrell’s novel is a rewriting of Shakespeare’s life, without ever mentioning that famous name. Instead, she beautifully recreates the period (1580s) and reclaims for Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife, her story, and her part in the narrative, which for so long has mostly eclipsed her.  

Strangely, although the world knows Shakespeare’s wife as Anne Hathaway, the novel names her as Agnes, and makes quite a big deal of the naming. When Shakespeare first asks her for her name, at first, she replies,

Anne’, she says, or seems to say, at the same time as he is saying: ‘I must know.’

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She tells him her name is not Anne and accuses him of not listening. He demands her name again, and she refuses, then he tells her she will tell him when they kiss.

It’s Agnes,’ she says.[…] Agnes. Said differently from how it might be written on a page, with that near-hidden, secret g. The tongue curls towards it yet barely touches it. Ann-yis. Agn-yez. One must lean into the first syllable, then skip over the next.

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(In the afterword, the author explains Agnes was the name used for Anne Hathaway on her father’s will.) 

O’Farrell’s novel dwells lovingly on detail, beautiful evocative detail which bring the place and period to life, taking its time to spin out the details without hurry. When describing how Agnes collects honey from her hives, the pace of the writing seem to slow right down, to parallel the pace of the observation/depiction:

The pale wax is scraped, carefully, carefully, into a basket; the honey leaves the comb with a cautious, near reluctant drop. Slow as sap, orange-gold, scented with the sharp tang of thyme and the flower sweetness of lavender, it falls into the pot Agnes holds out. A thread of honey stretches from comb to pot, widening, twisting.

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The images are so vivid and visceral that time seems to be held suspended as one reads.  

We learn of the context around the courtship of Agnes and Shakespeare, why the 18 year old who was not even of age to marry without parental consent, married this much older woman, who despite her dowry, was widely considered “a strange, unmarriageable sort” (p206). Agnes is depicted as a woman with supernatural powers of divining as well as knowledge of herblore. She has 3 children, a girl first, Susanna, and then twins, Judith and Hamnet. Agnes is a fiercely loving mother, devoted to all her children. O’Farrell depicts this lyrically, in a way many parents will surely identify with:

She, like all mothers, constantly cast out her thoughts, like fishing lines, towards her children, reminding herself of where they are, what they are doing, how they fare. From habit, while she sits there near the fireplace, some part of her mind is tabulating them and their whereabouts: Judith, upstairs, Susanna, next door. And Hamnet?

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Hamnet is dead by age eleven, and Agnes is nearly stupefied by her grief.

Her unconscious mind casts, again and again, puzzled by the lack of bite, by the answer she keeps giving it: he is dead, he is gone. And Hamnet? The mind will ask again. At school, at play, out at the river? And Hamnet? And Hamnet? Where is he?

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The last part of the book and ending are not quite as strong, probably because there is actually no story to tell. The grieving father, Shakespeare, channels his grief into a brilliant piece of art, and so Hamlet is written. But Agnes’ part in this is virtually non-existent. O’Farrell, even with all her sympathy for Shakespeare’s wife and doing her best to bring her to life as an intensely unusual and fascinating woman in her own right, can do little apparently to add to this or augment it. The novel simply goes nowhere – it tells of how Shakespeare met his wife, what his wife was like, their 3 children, the death of the boy, the grief of the parents, and then it finishes there. It is not much of a plot, truth be told. Then again, it was so beautifully rendered and written that it was a lovely read, evocative and lyrical. One comes away with the notion – whether right or wrong – that the author thinks Shakespeare’s life as playwright in London was quite separate from his family life in Stratford, a thing apart; and that his beloved wife had little to do with his plays, wonderful a woman though she may well have been. It rather begs the question then, why the interest in Anne/Agnes Hathaway, if she was not much of an influence in Shakespeare’s works?  

For another take on this book, see Susan’s review.