Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

The husband, standing straight as a reed now, arms folded, lips pressed together, shakes his head. “What did she say?” “That you had more hidden away inside you than anyone else she’d ever met.”

I wanted to give readers a new perspective on Shakespeare’s marriage, to suggest that William and Agnes loved each other, that theirs was a partnership. This idea expressed in this excerpt is drawn from my conjecture about how Shakespeare might have been seen in rural Warwickshire when he was young. I think he must have stuck out a mile. We know now what was inside him, what his imagination and intellect were capable of, but people then might have considered him a bit odd, a bit of a misfit. I liked the idea that maybe Agnes was the only person who saw his potential or recognized his extraordinary abilities.