Review: Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O'Farrell

 Greetings Lit Loves,

This month the book club I attend here in Cary, North Carolina selected to read the book titled Hamnet:  A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O'Farrell which became a national bestseller.  This book takes a fictional look at the life and death of Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, who died at age eleven in 1596.  Interestingly, the book additionally takes a look at Shakespeare's dysfunctional family inclusive of an alcoholic father who can be abusive to his wife and children and his mother, Mary, who tends to the family home in Stratford, Warwickshire England.  Shakespeare, in this book, was depicted as having a sister named Eliza and several brothers as well.  The book opens with Shakespeare as a Latin tutor of pupils in his hometown and also his courting his eventual wife, Anne or Agnes, Hathaway who grew up learning the medicinal value of herbs, flowers, and plants from her biological mom and a contentious relationship much later with her stepmother, Joan.

Obviously, Shakespeare and Agnes marry to the dismay of both their families.  Agnes's brother, Bartholomew, is the one family member with whom she has a lifelong connection as he helps broker a deal such that Agnes and Shakespeare will have an apartment above Shakespeare's parents' home as opposed to living directly with them.  Agnes and Shakespeare go on to have three children including Susanna and later, Hamnet and Judith who are fraternal twins.  Agnes works with local townspeople who come to her home for tinctures and solvents for their various heath problems.  Eventually, Shakespeare leaves his family to extend his father's embroidered glove business in London, but really, he begins to write and stage plays in London.  While he is away, Judith falls ill with symptoms of the plague and a letter is sent to Shakespeare to come home directly.  Judith recovers and it is Hamnet, the son, who eventually dies of the plague.  Shakespeare does make it back home, but it is too late to say goodbye to his son.  He does participate in the burial of his son.  Following the burial, Shakespeare leaves once again to write and stage plays in London.  Eventually, he becomes so successful as a writing and staging plays that he buys his family a sizeable home and land in Stratford, Warwickshire England.  And he additionally goes on to write the play, Hamlet, which is often thought to be a tribute to his son, Hamnet.

I think this book demonstrates how easily a plague or pandemic can begin and spread like wildfire.  It also deals with the obvious issue of death, but also how people cope differently with the death of a loved one.  Agnes, Hamnet's mother, falls into a silent stupor and becomes reclusive.  Hamnet's fraternal twin, Judith, is emotionally traumatized by her brother's death and also is left wondering why she lived and he died of the plague.  Susanna, Shakespeare's oldest child, follows her paternal grandmother's lead by getting back to all of life's regular chores.  And Shakespeare copes through being away from his family and writing a play of great tragedy.

It is also interesting to notice the rituals involved when someone dies.  In this book, Hamnet  dies and his mother and grandmother prepare his body by first washing it with oils and water.  Then the body is placed in a powder white shroud which is stitched together once it is draped on the deceased's body.  All this occurs as Hamnet lies on the frame of a door which will be utilized to transport him through town to his burial ground.  Hamnet's mother even cuts a lock of his hair which she then keeps in a jar which resides on a mantel in the apartment.  Additionally, Agnes places lavender and other herbs and flowers around his body as he is readied for burial.  She is comforted that his burial site is beside a river as Hamnet loved water.  Hamnet's sister, Judith, decorates a portion of an attic space in the cookhouse where she and her brother used to hide from the rest of the family.  

Finally, this book displays the often strong bonds among siblings especially Agnes and her brother, Bartholomew.  Bartholomew looks out for his sister when she is married by ensuring she and Shakespeare have a small place of their own built above his parents' home that is completely for the two of them and their family.  Bartholomew is the one who finds Agnes and where she decided to go and have her first child, Susanna.  It was a place where they hid and played as children themselves.  Bartholomew is the one who consoles Agnes at the death of Hamnet and urges her to prepare his body for eventual burial.  And finally, Bartholomew is the one who Shakespeare asks to locate and buy a private, large home with land for his family.

I thought this was an excellent book.  I certainly thought the author depicted the time period and characters well through most likely diligent research.  It was not an easy read for me, especially the part where Hamnet dies and is buried, as it reminded me of the suffering my own family experienced when my father died.  And the book gave me some insight into the probable everyday life and experiences of Shakespeare and why he became the famous person that he will always be.  I highly recommend this book.

Till my next review,

Grace  (Amy)

Review: The Guardians by John Grisham

 Dear Literary Loves,

Greetings!  And once again I have returned to one of my favorite authors, John Grisham.  He writes the best crime fiction and he is someone who as an established and successful writer, connected with me as I was struggling to write and obtain publication in the memoir genre.  In this particular book titled, The Guardians, Grisham gives readers an inside fictional look into the life of an attorney who represents those who have been wrongly convicted. The book has much to offer regarding how and why wrongful convictions happen as well as the arbitrary nature of the U.S. judicial system.

Initially, the main focus of the book is on a case where an attorney in the small town of Seabrook, Florida, is shot and killed while working in his law office late one evening.  The killer left no clues, there are no witnesses to the crime, and there appears to be no one with a motive to kill the attorney.  The local sheriff handles the investigation of the murder.  He turns his attention to a black man and former client of the dead attorney known as Quincy Miller.    People say Quincy Miller was not happy with Keith Russo, the deceased attorney, and how Russo boggled Miller's representation during a recent divorce.  There are folks who say Quincy Miller openly expressed his disappointment in Russo's handling of his divorce.  Some even say Miller made threatening phone calls to Attorney Keith Russo.  Before too long, the sheriff has a witness who says she saw a man similar to Quincy Miller running from the lawyer's office the night of the shooting.  Next, a flashlight with what looks to be blood specks on the lens of the flashlight is found in the trunk of Quincy Miller's car.  It is taken as evidence by the sheriff who puts the flashlight evidence into a box, stores it in a shed, and before a trial can take place, this evidence is supposedly destroyed by a fire ignited in the evidence storage shed.

Quincy Miller finds himself being prosecuted for the murder of Keith Russo.  A murder weapon was never found.  Miller's ex-wife testifies that he did own a shotgun and several pistols.  A jailhouse snitch testifies that while he was locked up in a cell with Miller, he heard Quincy Miller brag about killing Attorney Keith Russo.  Quincy Miller is tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.  He continues to advocate his innocence, but he has no attorney and no legal advocate.  He has a brother who visits him monthly in prison and sends Quincy money via check when he has extra income.  

Quincy Miller desperately writes to Guardian Ministries, a group that specializes in taking on cases where innocent men and women were convicted and sentenced to prison.  Cullen Post is the attorney at Guardian Ministries along with his partner, Vicki and assistant, Mazy who vote to take on Quincy Miller's case after reviewing the trial transcript and files along with the lack of a murder weapon and missing case evidence.  This crew has won 8 cases in which prisoners were shown to be wrongfully convicted and are serving time for a crime that someone else committed.  The question then becomes:  Will they have enough time to find missing evidence, interview trial witnesses, and proceed with DNA testing to determine if Quincy Miller and a few other prisoners are actually serving time for a crime they never committed?

I liked this book because there are few attorneys who are willing and have the time to devote to reviewing a convicted prisoner's case file to determine if the individual might have been wrongfully convicted.  In this book, the attorney who reviews Quincy's criminal case works mostly pro bono, spends a lot of time on the road tracking down witnesses and having evidence tested for DNA components.  Guardian Ministries depends on donations to keep the doors open.  Cullen Post, the innocence attorney in Quincy Miller's case actually lives in a room above the offices of Guardian Ministries.  Just the amount of time he spends traveling from one state to another is overwhelming.  And he carries affidavits with him on a near constant basis should he find a trial witness who is willing to say they lied in a criminal case.  It's a job that takes dedication and endless reserves of energy and a phenomenal curiosity.

This book also allows the reader to see the dysfunction in our criminal justice system.  A jury for a criminal trial does not always get the right person convicted.  And this happens because sometimes the people behind the crimes are paying off witnesses, witnesses may lie while testifying in court simply to retaliate against the person being prosecuted, law enforcement may utilize a convicted prisoner to obtain information from a defendant while in jail, and trial evidence may have been planted or destroyed intentionally to cover up and protect who really committed the crime.  

According to what I read in this book, there are more than two million people locked up in prison in the United States and it takes one million employees and over eighty million dollars to house and care for the prison population.  The book made me wonder how many prisoners in the United States are actually truly innocent and may pay the ultimate price  of death for a crime they did not commit and how many prisoners have lost their freedoms and rights as citizens for a crime that someone else actually committed?  This book will make you think about our often chaotic judicial system and also give you an added degree of skepticism if you are ever called to be a jury member on a criminal case.  Another well-written book by John Grisham.  I never expect anything less from one of my favorite authors.  I highly recommend the book, The Guardians by John Grisham.

Till my next review,

Grace (Amy)

Review: The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman

 Dear Lit Loves,

I am beginning to think I should just trust my book club when it comes to selecting books of fiction to place on my "to read" stack.  This month's book selection was no disappointment either.  We read The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman which takes a peek into a timely setting, the Fall of 1918 in the slums of Philadelphia where a thirteen year old immigrant named Pia Lange has just moved with her family to an apartment.  The area is home to a host of immigrants, Pia's family is of German origin while others around her are of Irish origin.  Right off the bat, the Spanish flu hits and Pia arrives home from school one day not realizing her world is about to change forever.

Schools shut down, restaurants, the farmers' markets, and people start dying in large numbers after attending a parade that some thought was a terrible idea due to the rampant spread of the Spanish flu.  Pia's dad has joined the Army, but before he left her mother gave birth to two twin boys, Ollie and Max.  While Pia is at home with her mom assisting with the care of her twin brothers, her mother becomes exhausted and passes away thereby leaving Pia to look after her twin brothers.  So many people are dying that Pia watches as carriages and trucks arrive several times a day to pick up bodies of people who have died and their families have wrapped them in linens and deposited them outside their homes.  Pia begins a resilient journey in hopes of keeping her brothers and herself alive until the epidemic ends.  When she begins to realize there is no food she can find in the apartment for her twin brothers, she makes the decision to leave her brothers in a cubby in their mother's bedroom while she goes to various neighboring apartments to ask for food.  And while she is trying to gather donations, Pia starts feeling ill and collapses in the street.

Meanwhile, there is Bernice Groves who lost her son to the flu.  If I remember correctly, she also lost her husband to the flu as well.  She is shell-shocked as she continues to leave her son's body in his crib and mourn for him.  At a certain point, she wants to die herself.  When she notices Pia leave her apartment without her mom and twin brothers, her suspicions are sparked because she had noticed at the market that Pia's mother was of German descent.  Bernice is not keen on the influx of immigrants to the Philadelphia area.  She wants the country to remain Americanized with only English speakers.  She goes to check on Pia's mother and brothers only to find the apartment door unlocked, Pia's mother dead, and the twin brothers crying from inside a floor cubby.  Bernice decides to take the twin boys.

Pia's life becomes one of endless trauma and unyielding guilt.  She wakes up inside a church pew after being found collapsed on the street.  She is being tended to by a nun who informs her she has been practically unconscious for six days.  Next, she is deposited at an orphanage having no chance to return home to her twin brothers.  The orphanage is located in an isolated area, is dirty, serves inadequate meals, and is filled with children of all ages.  Pia is assigned to work in the nursery caring for and supervising the youngest orphans.

Bernice Groves decides to take the persona and uniform of a nurse.  She calls herself Nurse Wallis and she basically decides to begin reading obituaries, locating families who have lost young children, going to Pia's orphanage and obtaining a baby or child and offering them to couples who have lost a child.  And then she charges a finder's fee thus making money for herself and the twins.  Immigrant children that are orphaned and who Bernice locates are placed on trains going to other states and families.  

Pia gets sent to help a wealthy doctor's family.  Upon arrival at Dr. Hudson's residence, she is introduced as  being sent by the orphanage's lead nun to help Mrs. Hudson with four children.  Mrs. Hudson isn't leaving the house and has a "No Visitors" sign on her front door.  When Pia sees the affluence of the Hudsons, she is ashamed of her depraved state coming from an orphanage.  The Hudsons take her into their home and she happily takes on duties of helping care for young children while simultaneously wondering what became of her twin brothers.  The Hudsons realize too that Pia is gifted with being able to feel the afflictions of others when she touches them.  The Hudsons' realize this when she informs them there is something wrong with their son, Leo, but Dr. Hudson is unable to find anything wrong with him.  The next day Leo is deceased.  

Following Leo's death and when the family is most vulnerable, Nurse Wallis appears to console Mrs. Hudson and the family.  And one day, Nurse Wallis brings an orphaned boy whose mother could not keep him.  Nurse Wallis leaves the orphan with the Hudson family for two days and returns to discover Mrs. Hudson wants to keep the child.  That's when Mrs. Hudson learns that Nurse Wallis wants a tidy sum of money for the baby she has brought to the family.  Nurse Wallis's shenanigans start to unravel once she recognizes Pia and leaves one of Pia's brother's homemade rattle at the Hudson residence.  The pieces of the puzzle start to come together for Pia and The Hudson family.  I won't give away the ending of the story, but suffice it to say, Bernice Groves gets her due and Pia uncovers what really happened to her father and twin brothers.

This book was published right when our Covid 19 pandemic was beginning.  I thought the book demonstrated the varying choices people can make when faced with unrelenting trauma.  It also evocates how trauma affects a person's psyche, and the manner in which cities across our nation handled or mishandled the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic.  Plus, there was always the comparison in my mind while reading the book of how the pandemic we face today differs and yet is similar to the Spanish Flu epidemic.  It's a beautiful book.  I appreciated the author's willingness to befriend me and highly recommend this timely book.

Until My Next Review,

Grace

(Amy)