Maggie O’Farrell is so uniquely talented at fleshing out tidbits of vague but interesting historical figures into a full-fledged imagining. Both Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait are, on the surface, supposed to be about the excitement of a more singular story (Shakespeare’s son dying of the plague and a young duchess getting murdered by her husband, respectively) even though they are really about the day to day life and enthralling family dynamics of the main characters. I really enjoy the way she flips back and forth with past and present in both until the two timelines meet at the climax.

Now this review has ended up being about both of her novels I’ve read simply because I feel like O’Farrell’s incredible prose takes the forefront over the actual plots of the books themselves. The beauty is in the way the characters describe and navigate their emotions and tribulations rather than what causes them or how they are resolved.

P.S. This fictionalized version of Shakespeare is nothing but a wimpy deadbeat to me and did not deserve the interesting, powerful, and persevering Agnes