This is the only Updike I've ever read, so I can't comment on how well this fits in with the rest of his writing. This is an imagined prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Updike shows us Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, as a girl, and follows her life as wife to Old King Hamlet of Denmark. How she then came to be the wife of Claudius, Old King Hamlet's younger brother, is the heart of this story. Young Hamlet only appears 'offstage' in this novel, an interesting trick. Gertrude is vivid and sympathetic here, while the motives of all the other characters remain murky. A fast, smart read, but I didn't love it, perhaps because I've always found the original Hamlet unsatisfying. I'd like to read a Macbeth prequel, though. Wouldn't Lady M. as a hell-on-wheels girl be fun to read about?
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