Thank you to Random House UK for this arc!

Despite Bratton’s prose being evocative and melodic, unfortunately this book wasn’t for me. The one specific, seriously dark plot point felt completely out of place in the narrative, with no point or consequence/retribution. I couldn’t get past this, finding it to be a bizarre addition to the story. I also felt that the present-day adaptation of the Lord/Duke/Lancaster inheritance premise didn’t quite work — there weren’t really any stakes, other than the Lancaster family probably losing their estates? Unclear.
Moreover, too many characters flitted in and out with no real sense of purpose or effect on the overall storyline — it seemed that the main point for some of them was just to flag that these are ‘Shakespeare’ characters. Finally, the Hal/Percy love story came, and ended, really abruptly. I never really felt like they knew each other, or wanted to be with each other beyond the story requiring it of them. Ultimately, Hal deserved so much better and I wish he’d had the opportunity to have some sort of chance at happiness and to see Henry rightfully punished.
I had high hopes for this book, but they fell short.

This is a gay, incestuous, 2010s-set reimagining of Shakespeare's Henriad: let's call it Brandon Taylor meets Edward St Aubyn. As far as it goes, it's good. Bratton vividly imagines young Hal's terrifying self-destructiveness with drugs and drink, and shows it as stemming in large part from historical sexual abuse by his father, which you could argue is a symbolic mirroring of the systemic abuse of individuals by the British class system (I am convinced nothing is so devastating to a person's soul as being brought up in the expectations that surround hereditary wealth).

In another way it doesn't work at all. There are definitely queer and trauma-informed readings of the Henriad, but it isn't about queerness or trauma; rather, it's about succession and responsibility and the cost of duty. Adding those elements isn't a problem in itself, but doesn't contribute much to our understanding of the original story. Also, though I'm not convinced that it's an anti-Catholic novel per se (though I've seen it interpreted that way), the Lancaster family's Catholicism doesn't quite come across as recognisable contemporary Catholicism. Bratton is American, and while that doesn't disqualify him to write this book, his painting of the intersections of British class, sexuality and religion misses some spots. He's produced a very elegantly-turned novel, though. Worth a try if the comp in my first sentence interests you at all.

In Henry Henry Allen Bratton captures a flawed character on a self-destructive path, the messy dynamics of family relationships and the aftermath of trauma.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for providing me with an ARC.

Henry Henry is a queer reimagining of Shakespeare's Henriad, set over the course of a year from 2014, where Henry V is 22-year-old Hal – Catholic, gay, usually high or drunk – and heir to the House of Lancaster. Hal flouts through life aimlessly, occasionally going to confession, and being guilted into visiting his father (Henry) – widowed, passive-aggressive, and intent on moulding Hal into someone he isn’t.

Hal and Henry’s relationship is the main focus of the novel, imbued with obsession and possession, and a certain kind of trauma. There is a large focus on Catholicism, and Henry and Hal’s relationship to this, as well as the class system and politics. This book also explores themes of addiction, eating disorders, sexual abuse, grief, and AIDs.

The novel is also a romance in some elements, between Hal and Henry Percy, family friend and fellow posh Oxford graduate, and previously Hal’s rival. I really liked the romance between Hal and Percy, and the well it offsets Hal’s relationship with his father.

As someone who knows next to nothing about the Henriad plays, or that period of history in general, this was an interesting retelling, and it worked well for me. The time period centring around UK politics in 2015, the gay romance, and mixing that with a story of abuse and addiction makes for a truly unputdownable read, but one that is very full of trigger warnings.

Henry Henry is a literary fiction loose retelling of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays, bringing Hal into the twenty-first century as a gay Catholic son of the Duke of Lancaster. It is 2014 and Hal Lancaster drinks and gets high to avoid his father, but when an unlikely invitation to join family friend Harry Percy at a shooting retreat turns into a romance, Hal's life is pulled in more directions, balancing shame and guilt and addiction with the possibility of something different to what his father wants for him.

As someone who has been obsessed with the Henry IV plays and read plenty of Shakespeare retellings (including Henry IV ones), I was intrigued to see how Henry Henry would approach the play and also how it would be a novel. After finishing the book, I'm still a bit conflicted about how it relates to Henry IV, as it feels to me like it occupies a middle ground between between a faithful adaptation (which it is definitely not) and being a very loose adaption, because it does adhere to having most of the characters from the plays (and more from history) to the extent it almost doesn't work without knowledge of the plays, but then deviates from the themes and plot of the plays a lot, perhaps making it better to not know what it is based on. In some ways, I like this, because it really does reimagine the plays as something different, but it is confusing that it has such a precise cast and some key story elements retold, and then other elements and the overall arc not matching up at all.

Told from a third-person perspective, the book explores a lot—sexual abuse, Catholic guilt, addiction, eating disorders, the treatment of people with AIDS—whilst also notably not really exploring other areas. The monarchy has been removed, and indeed is barely even referenced to, and the layers of class issues present both in the original plays and the scenarios of this retelling get a bit lost in the mix, so the book ends up being a bit 'wow rich people' without really saying anything about this. The Catholicism in the book is A Lot (one of the characters even complains that the Catholic guilt is A Lot), and I imagine people interested in it will really like how entwined it is with everything (and there's something interesting about taking a play set when the characters were Catholic by default and making the characters Catholic as something more unusual in modern day London).

In terms of characters, the endeavour of having so many of the characters from the plays and real historical figures is a notable choice, and it works well in some places. For example, modern Henry IV retellings do well by making Philippa appear as Hal's youngest, wayward sister who can be a reflection of him in a different way to other characters are reflections of him. Both Falstaff and Poins are quickly sidelined and generally the 'Eastcheap' part of the plays is downplayed hugely, a sort of sticky carpeted Wetherspoons vibe that Hal leaves for Catholic guilt and Harry Percy's much posher leftism. Hal's brothers become interchangeable, which is fair, and generally a lot of the characters recede as the novel progresses, so it becomes mostly Hal and Henry, with occasional family members and Harry Percy. The third person narration keeps a bit of distance (there's a sudden chapter that is narrated by someone to Hal later in the book, which felt suddenly out of place), making Hal a little more unknowable.

Two main elements of the novel are Hal's relationships to his father, Henry, and to Harry Percy, family friend turned lover. The blurb suggests these are going to be equally important, positioning the book even as potentially a kind of coming of age romance, but going in expecting that will leave you disappointed. This is a much darker take on Henry IV than retellings tend to be (and the marketing suggests), exploring trauma and abuse and victimhood in quite complex ways, but it does feel like it would be helpful to have any sense going into the book that incest and sexual abuse were going to be so crucial in it, given that they aren't in the original plays. These parts are going to be divisive, especially for people going in for the Hal and Harry Percy romance element or the "queer retelling", and actually getting much more of a focus on an abusive father-son dynamic. For me, it was a surprise because the opening feels like it might be a more straightforward modern retelling and then suddenly you realise it is not at all, and that's certainly an interesting choice.

Henry Henry feels part of a lineage of gay literary fiction, bringing hints of Brideshead (Catholicism) and Dennis Cooper (abuse and addiction) alongside occasional 2015 references to try and prove it isn't actually from an older time. The thing is, I'm still not entirely sure why it is a retelling of Henry IV, and not just a novel about being gay and Catholic and having an abusive father. I might've either preferred it to be more of a retelling, at least in terms of narrative structure as this version is a completely different kind of arc, or less of one, with more experimental prose/character framing or less of a reliance on every single character/family member from the play/history. The ending is an interesting choice that says something about this version of Hal and suits a literary novel about abuse and addiction, but for me, doesn't say enough about the book as a retelling or reworking.

Henry Henry was always going to be a novel I had opinions about, and to be honest I wasn't expecting them to mostly be confusion about how I feel about it as an adaptation and as a novel that should work without knowing the plays. It is an experience to read—it's well-written and it brings in a lot of interesting things, as well as darkly comic images of Hal's life—but it left me frustrated, that it is being marketed as something very different and that it doesn't always seem to know its own relationship with Shakespeare's plays. Messed-up, dark gay novels are great, but I think this one would've worked better for me if it also wasn't Henry IV.

Wow ok.

What this book is not - is a rom com. You might be lulled into a false sense of this book from the description and the cartoonish cover of the UK edition but while this story can be funny and romantic, this isn't Red White and Royal Blue, even a little bit. Raven Leilani and Brandon Taylor as featured quotes probably should have clued me in. Bratton is aiming at literary prizes over mass appeal, though with the current popularity of My Dark Vanessa, Perfume and Lapvona, I may be proved wrong.

Henry Henry is an adaptation of Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 which is intimately concerned with inheritances. What we inherit from our family, from our history, from our upbringing. It's a shocking portrait of familial abuse and how that shapes your character, and how difficult it is to find any catharsis or true absolution when your experiences have fundamentally shaped who you are as a person, warts and all. Hal Lancester, deeply catholic, deeply gay and deeply messy, is an absorbing protagonist. His relationship with champagne socialist and family friend Harry Percy as well as his father's impending remarriage sparks a personal journey reconciling himself with his difficult (to put it lightly) relationship with his family, his coping mechanisms, and the abuse that defined his childhood.

Bratton's Hal is not likable or cheeky, he is an addict, he kind of sucks and he is an imperfect victim. He doesn't get a crowning moment when he emerges a completely new person leading England to some bright new dawn (as google tells me the Henriad plays out) but his journey felt much more grounded and satisfying for it. His relationship with his sister Phillipa was particularly satisfying, despite Harry Percy recieving top billing in the description. I do think this may end up with some level of controversy, especially given the graphic depictions of ongoing incestal abuse throughout the book, and the nuanced depiction of the abuser in question. This is absolutely not going to be a book for everyone because of this, but I think Bratton is telling their version of this story and admirably not trying to package it as a morality tale.

I can't speak to how accurate or truthful to the Shakespeare plays, but it certainly felt like an adaptation. It made me desperately want to find a performance somewhere in London and come back to this book and read it again. This may go without saying but it felt like it had the best qualities of those modern retellings which refrain from simply functioning as fanfiction of familiar stories but instead use the plot beats and characters to investigate the themes of the original that the author is most interested in. That being said, I'm not entirely sure Henry Henry stands on its own without the Shakespeare connection, it sometimes felt like I was missing something. Readers unfamiliar with any aspect of the plays or the history may find consistent references to an usurped Uncle Richard (who is a prominent character in his absence) or the large cast of side characters with similar names slightly baffling but certainly not impossible to decipher with a little patience. It simply felt like I would like it even more if read in concert with the original plays.