An award-winning book that had been on my radar for a little while, I was glad to get the chance to read this! Although he is never specifically named, instead being referred to as "the Latin tutor" or "Hamnet's father", etc., this book is a fictionalized story of William Shakespeare and his family. Names are important in this book: Hamnet's mother, Agnes, tells "the Latin tutor" her name is Anne at their first meeting, and the pronunciation of her name is often mentioned throughout the book. Similarly, the book begins with the explanation that during the time period that this book was set, the names Hamlet and Hamnet were interchangeable. So while the reader is always aware that this is a story about William Shakespeare's family, by never naming him, and keeping him out of much of the action (he is in London at this point, gaining fame as an actor and playwright), the reader becomes much more invested in the story of Hamnet and his twin sister Judith, as well as the story of Agnes and her courtship with "the Latin tutor".
As the subtitle states, this is a novel of the plague and the author tells us in advance who in the family will be affected. But the author is excellent at drawing the reader into the story of the family as a whole, and specifically Hamnet and his mother, Agnes. In addition, we learn much about how families lived and interacted during this time, and we get a glimpse of how Shakespeare's family might have functioned, and how his relationship with his wife, in-laws, and his own family might have shaped him. History knows very little about Shakespeare's wife and I found her character in this story to be richly imagined and fascinating. I very much enjoyed this book and have been thinking about it quite a bit since reading it.
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