to forgive myself a little, because it wasn’t all my fault. I’m not sure I’ll ever convince myself, but I’ll try.
I’ve learned that I do believe in ghosts.
And I’ve learned that coffee, when it has just the right amount of milk and sugar in it, is about the best damned thing on the planet.
The rest is silence.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My inspiration for Falling for Hamlet came after seeing a magnificent production of Hamlet in Washington, D.C. It was set in modern times, which I loved because the focus was not on fancy costumes but on the story. Hamlet was just a confused, depressed guy walking around in a hoodie, being betrayed not only by his enemies but by everyone he loved and trusted. And it was the first time I felt really bad for Hamlet.
The one element that did not sit well with me, however, was Ophelia. The actress playing her was fine, yet I could not reconcile a modern girl losing her mind the way she did. As I walked out of the theater, I asked myself, “What would make a teenager today go crazy?” By the time I reached the subway, the question had morphed into “What if she didn’t die at all?”
Because I planned to make my story modern, the triggers for Ophelia’s actions had to change, and I wondered how Shakespeare’s questions of rank, family loyalty, and duty transferred to today. Her brother, Laertes, for instance, speaks with Ophelia early on about the consequences of losing her honor. In Shakespeare’s day, purity was everything to a young woman’s future, but not so these days. That said, shame still exists, and even if what causes it might be different, the desire to avoid humiliation leads many of us to do things we never thought we would do— like betray someone we love.
Much of Hamlet is about power, and I knew my version needed a setting with a strong hierarchy. In addition, I felt there had to be an awareness on the part of the characters that the public was watching. Shakespeare brought this theme into Twelfth Night, when he wrote, “What great ones do the less will prattle of.” In other words, commoners loved gossiping about the rich and famous. We still do. Whether it’s about celebrity weddings, breakups, or who’s wearing what, we still care. In transferring Hamlet to now, I considered setting it in a place like Hollywood or the business world of New York. But I felt strongly that keeping Hamlet a prince was important because hanging over all the family drama is a fight for the crown. And in looking at gossip magazines, most specifically at Princess Diana’s tabloid-bait sons, it occurred to me that the royals still make great press. In deciding to do this, I wondered what it would be like to be the nonroyal girlfriend of one of them, and to feel the pressure not only of everyone judging you so publicly, but of the prospect of becoming a queen.
Many of the scenes are direct translations of Shakespeare’s words. Making Shakespeare’s lines sound modern was no easy task, and my friends, agent, editor, and copy editors all called me out when the words of the characters sounded too old-fashioned. At times, I made a joke of it, like Ophelia saying, “Primrose path of dalliance.” She’s trying to sound smart while talking to her brother, but then I felt I had to follow it with a colloquial translation so readers knew what I meant. Other times, I had to get a bit creative, like Hamlet scribbling “To be” and “Not to be” on a notebook— a line I’d originally cut because having him say it out loud sounded too clunky.
I considered changing character names. However, I decided to keep them because I wanted you, the reader, to recognize the characters and see how their actions matched the original. Although it’s odd to read “Laertes,” “Horatio,” etc., in a modern context, I hoped that readers would grow accustomed to it. I tried to keep the characters similar, too, like having soldiers’ names become the guards and so on. For Ophelia’s friends, however, I used contemporary names to make a distinction between these two worlds.
While I took liberties with the story— namely that Ophelia stays alive— I tried to stay true to the general structure of Hamlet. The interviews, of course, were not in the original, but the basic plot follows the structure of the play. One challenge was that Ophelia is in just a