Maggie O’Farrell’s use of language keeps this novel about the basis of Shakespeare’s character Hamlet, an enthralling life affirming experience.  She enters the pantheon of great writers with passages like, “She cannot understand it. She, who hear the dead, the unspoken, the unknown, who can touch a person and listen to the creep of disease along the veins, can sense the dark velvet press of a tumour on a lung or a liver, can read a person’s eye and heart like some can read a book. She cannot find, cannot locate the spirit of her own child.” What a joyous time we live in, when a novel of this stature reaches #1 on the best seller list.

Maggie O’Farrell, “Hamnet” – YouTube

Hamnet Shakespeare – Wikipedia