Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague, O'Farrell - A*

       This is an imagining of the life of Will and Agnes Shakespeare at two critical junctures: their marriage in 1582, and the death of their son in 1596. The story's heroine is Agnes, who stands up to Will's bullying, glove maker father, decides that Will should seek opportunities away from Stratford, holds the family together in a vast array of ways and nurses her daughter, Judith, Hamnet's twin, through the Plague. Judith was very small at birth and has required assiduous attention to stay healthy.  Her weakness is cited as the reason Agnes could never join Will in London.  While helping Judith through the Plague though, it is the healthier Hamnet who succumbs.  His death destroys his mother, who falls into a deep and lengthy period of painful morning. When Agnes learns that Will has written a play titled with their son's name, she and her brother travel to London. She arrives at the Globe in time to see a presentation of Hamlet, which she perceives as a blasphemy against her sons name. She slowly realizes the play is an homage to her son; Will's way of coming to grips with his son's death. This is the historical novel at its best, with vivid and detailed descriptions of life and death in the late Elizabethan era. This book won the national Book Critics Circle Award.