Finally got round to reading this one! I sort of knew I would love it, but maybe also part of me was worried that I wouldn’t?! But I needn’t have worried, it was an excellent read: a very imaginative look at early modern family life, a great little Shakespeare-themed book, and just generally a great novel!
The premise is simple: Who was Agnes (Anne), the wife of young Will Shakespeare? How did her family live? How did their courtship start? What were Agnes and Will like as parents? What was the marriage of the Shakespeares really like? Why didn’t Will bring his family to London?
Some of the central mysteries of Shakespeare’s family life are explained and explored, and there are some lovely biographical and intertextual moments.
But even without the connection to Shakespeare, it’s a lovely novel with a warm and elegiac tone that explores themes of love, family, and loss. Little details and moments are perfectly hammered out. You can almost hear the street in Stratford that they live on, taste the stew and small ale, see the kestrel flying above the fields.
One of the central themes is grief and the role of fate, art, and acceptance in the grieving process. It’s a hopeful story, never completely bleak, despite its emotional desolation.
A book that lives up to its promise and one I warmly recommend!
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