Henry Henry

this is like if ottessa moshfegh wrote a brandon taylor book. and also shakespeare is somehow involved, i guess. i (like many people who dare to call themselves bookworms) have not read any of shakespeare's history monarch-y plays, so much of the henriad retelling was lost on me even though i very br......more

a fabulously fucked and faggy rejigging of the Henriad, as boorish and biting as Martin Amis at his peak. ___________ 07/24 read again in prep for an in-conversation i chaired with bratton that happened at burley fisher, still think this is great......more

a modern, queer retelling of shakespeare’s henriad. very well-written and witty and sad and god it made me depressed......more

Well. Well! Well... Henry Henry is a queer retelling of the Henriad, set in 2014 and following Hal, heir to the Dukedom, as he does copious amounts of cocaine, gets shot in the face, drinks to excess, falls into bed with people for various self-destructive reasons, and fucks his father who's been abu......more

✰ 3.25 stars ✰ “I was in love. I didn’t want anything. That’s how you know you’re happy, that’s what happiness means.” Allen Bratton's debut novel Henry Henry is a loosely based retelling of Shakespeare's Henriad plays. I can't say for sure just how accurate a retelling it is or how much of it was......more