Hamnet and Other Brushes with Death
Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague (Knopf, 2020), the latest work from Glasgow based writer Maggie O’Farrell is a fictional account of William Shakespeare’s family life, inspired by the early death of his only son. The real Hamnet (a name interchangeable in 16th Century England with Hamlet, also the title of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy) died at the age of 11 in 1596.
More than anything, Hamnet is the story of Agnes: wife, mother, wise woman. Agnes, also know in the historically record as Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, is known mostly through her relationships, one of the more interesting being her relationship to the non-human world. In beautiful vivid description Agnes is freed from the more common historical stereotypes of a woman in her times:
She is cool in a shift, under the dark, river-colored shade of the
trees, her thick braid of hair pinned to the top of her head, hidden
under a white coif. No bee-keeper veil covers her face—she never
wears one. If you came close enough, you would see that her lips
are moving, murmuring small sounds and clicks to the insects that
circle her head, alight on her sleeve, blunder into her face (16)
Agnes the healer, the medicine woman, adds depth and richness to both her character and to the story itself. Yet, one can image another story about Agnes. Perhaps one centered in her non-human relationships, further illuminating her rich interior life. Alas, this story is of Agnes as mother and wife, to the often absent and philandering William Shakespeare, who is never mentioned by his given name but alternately as he, father and the Latin tutor.
It is through Agnes the healer that Hamnet’s sudden illness (bubonic plague) takes on a special kind of brutality. A “fierce and savage” woman who is looked upon with equal parts reverence and suspicion, Agnes “can cure anything but also cause anything” (p. 62). And yet, she is rendered powerless to save her dying son from his fate.
Some of the book’s most emotionally moving scenes describe in heartbreaking and timeless clarity what it is to lose a child:
She discovers that it is possible to cry all day and all night.
That there are many efferent ways to cry: the sudden
out-pouring of tears, the deep, racking sobs, the soundless
and endless leaking of water from the eyes…Summer is an
assault. The long evenings, the warm air wafting through
the windows, the slow progress of the river through the town,
the shouts of children playing late in the street, the horses
flicking flies from their flanks, the ledgers heavy with flowers
and berries. Agnes would like to tear it all down, rip it up,
hurl it to the wind. (144)
It is hard to know what the real Anne Hathaway thought or felt upon the death of her only son. Though child death was not uncommon in 16th century England and life spans generally were much shorter than they are today, its is hard to image any mother, in any time, anything but bereft in the aftermath of her child’s death.
O’Farrell herself has had a number of near death experiences, as recounted in her essay collection I am I am I am: Seventeen Brushes with Death (Vintage Books, 2017). Among them, a close encounter with a serial killer, a near fatal bout of encephalitis as a child that left lasting damage, and the daily vigilance of keeping her own daughter alive in the face of severe and pervasive allergies.
O’Farrell’s personal experiences seem poised to make her the rare writer who can craft whole books around death without lapsing into depressive musings or sentimental cliches. In both her essays and fiction, O’Farrell offers compelling narratives of trauma and loss, compelling for their drama, yes, but equally so for their fidelity to lived experience and their capacity to articulate resilience in the face of tragedy.