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A moving, propulsive novel. An interesting imagining of a famous life of which we know so little, of his family, and of his son who died young. More than anything, a book about feelings.

I had a real issue with the beginning. The style was over-expressive, to the point of being confusing and hard to follow. It threw me out of the setting instead of immersing me in it. But before long, it either evened out or I got used to it, and O’Farrell pulled me into the world she created.

The narrative revolves around Shakespeare’s wife Agnes, and life in Stratford. We see a bit of her childhood, her courtship and marriage, her gifts as a healer, her bond with her children and how she copes with the absence of her husband, who is off in London doing something no one seems to understand. The exploration of family and personalities really fleshes out the story. I particularly related to meditations on the sibling connection.

“He is of her blood, wholly and completely, in a way that no one else is.�

The descriptions of grief were searing--intense and detailed, thrusting me back to my own experiences with the death of loved-ones, though I’ve never faced the loss of a child. I’m not much for trigger warnings, but be aware--if you’ve suffered the loss of someone close recently, this may be painful. For me it was cathartic. It’s always comforting to have someone describe so well a pain you’ve experienced that generally people don’t seem to understand.

O’Farrell’s treatment of Shakespeare himself was fascinating. He is not the focus of the story and off-stage more often than not, however a constant presence. I was so impressed with the way she created this effect. He is the abused son, the dreamer, the father who is largely absent yet very much the center of his family. As this is Agnes� story, we don’t see the life of a writer, but we get hints of his needs.

“Nowhere else can he escape the noise and life and people around him; nowhere else is he able to let the world recede, the sense of himself dissolve, so that he is just a hand, holding an ink-dipped feather, and he may watch as words unfurl from its tip. And as these words come, one after another, it is possible for him to slip away from himself and find a peace so absorbing, so soothing, so private, so joyous that nothing else will do.�

I’ve never been a big Shakespeare reader. What I’ve read has been wonderful of course, but I just haven’t gotten around to that much. I think that might change now. I feel something haunting me just a bit, an opening to it all now that wasn’t there before. Such is the power of a good story.