In 1976 England was in the midst of a terrible drought and heat wave. It’s an inauspicious and unexpected time for a happily married, retired man to go missing, but Robert does, taking only his keys and his passport. His wife Gretta is left in a frazzled state and his adult children have all been called to come home and look for him in Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, Instructions for ... Read More...
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
I adored Maggie O’Farrell’s last novel, Hamnet. She returns, with another novel set in the 1500s, but in Italy this time. The Marriage Portrait is about a young Italian princess and bride, Lucrezia of the famous Medici family, known for its support of key artists and scientists of the Renaissance. The Marriage Portrait is both her story and the name of one of the few portraits ... Read More...
Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague
What never ceases to amaze me is the way one person can take the smallest notation from history, and turn it into a story of staggering depth and beauty that the rest of us would never have even considered. In this case, I’m referring to Maggie O’Farrell and her newest novel, Hamnet, the story of one real little boy in 16th century England, his mother, the bubonic plague, and ... Read More...
