I didn’t learn any new big concepts, but that is because the ideas of this classic work has seeped into the discourse of mass incarceration.

Some things I did appreciate learning about: the history around regression of gains during the Reconstruction period and the legal decisions of the Supreme Court that make it impossible to sue police and prosecutor offices for racial discrimination. These two topics I knew little about and is very good info to have.

In the Author's Note, O'Farrell states that she had wondered why the plague was never mentioned in any of Shakespeare's works (genuinely curious, considering the era he lived in) and that this novel was the result of that idle speculation. That is probably the best description of this novel I could come up with: the idle speculation of someone who can write really well.

It was an interesting premise with a lot of beautiful writing, but as a story, it fell pretty flat for me. I'm generally a fan of character studies, stories light on plot, etc. but this just didn't have much depth to justify that. Everything seemed quite predictable--it's not hard to guess that the woman who married Shakespeare would be a bit weird, her child dying is tragic and gut-wrenching, and that families of origin of artsy/weird people likely sucked a lot.

While beautifully written, it was almost cheesy at times, or as another reviewer put it, "too much." I'm not one for dramatics, but perhaps those who can relate to the characters more would be able to connect more with this story.