Could This Be The Book Of The Year? It Could Turn Out To Be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

                                            The year, of course, is not over yet, girls, but "Hamnet," by Maggie O'Farrell, is the only novel that has truly excited me, emotionally, narratively, and structurally.  It imagines how Shakespeare, who emerges from out of someone else's being in this novel, came to write his most enigmatic play, "Hamlet."

                                              I don't know how much of this is fiction or fact, but the author gets her period research right, and Hamnet, whose death (and that is not a spoiler, darlings!) ignites the drive of the novel, comes to haunt the reader in a way unseen since the titular character of Daphne Du Maurier's novel, "Rebecca."  All the more tragic because the deceased was only 11 years old!

                                                Don't look for Polonius or Ophelia here.  O'Farrell is not that blatant. What she centers on is a family stopped in its tracks by grief, and how that grief impacts them all over time.  What may sound like a downer is not, because the reader is given the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, plus living characters one can care about as much as Hamnet.

                                                  I did not expect to be blown away as much as I was.  You just never know, dolls!

                                                  But blow me away it did.  Should it be named Book Of The Year, remember, you heard it first, here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!