This was an amazing historical fiction that is purportedly about Hamnet, a certain famous playwright's son, set in the 1590s. I say purportedly because it's really about Hamnet's family and how they deal with the loss of a beloved child.
This is a melancholic and speculative look into how Hamnet's family members dealt with his death, and it's a heart-wrenching one. While it took me a while to warm up to it--due to the jumping timeline and me going into this completely blind and not realizing that this was about Shakespeare's son until I was 100+ pages into it (yes, I'm dumb like that)--I really enjoyed the almost sedate pace. Maggie O'Farrell's writing is lovely and descriptive and sometimes I just took a moment to appreciate how she sets the stage for the next act (ha, get it, ok I'll shut up now). I really liked the way she lets the story unfold, which is evident in that one chapter where she showed how the sickness came to Hamnet's house.
I came out of this absolutely loving Agnes & Bartholomew, so much so that I just went Shakespeare who? Because at the heart of it, I really do think this is a story about Agnes first and foremost, and I loved that, loved that O'Farrell decided to take such an interesting subject to weave a story around her and her more infamous husband. I don't pretend to know if this is an accurate take because I'm not a Shakespeare fangirl. What I do know is that Maggie O'Farrell has done a phenomenal job in portraying Agnes and the rest of the characters here, and I loved this take of what might have happened to the family following Hamnet's death.
