Maggie O’Farrell’s novel shares the lives of one Stratford family in the late sixteenth century, a family who just happens to be that of a famous playwright. If you’re looking for a story that focuses on that writer, this is not it, but instead, taking a cue from his tendency to lead two separate lives, the novel creates a sense of the country and family foundations of his work: his family’s strains and grief, the burden of the previous generation’s failures, their community’s disapproval of their unorthodox habits; in other words, the lives of artists, but in the late Middle Ages. Once you settle into the rhythm of these lives, ‘Hamnet’ pulls you into the difficult and rewarding world that produced William Shakespeare. Like everything you will read about him, it leaves you wanting more.