All Our Yesterdays
All Our Yesterdays reimagines Lady Macbeth’s life up until the events begin in Shakespeare’s play. Only referred to as the Lady, she tells us her story in alternating chapters with the Son’s story told in third person.
The Lady grew up motherless and free to roam her father’s castle and lands. Lonely and ignored, she had a mercurial father, her loving Grandam, and her cousin Macduff. There is much to be feared in her world – witches, ghosts, spells, omens, portents. During a forest wandering, she meets an old black-cloaked woman holding “a knot in her hand to untie.” The Lady interprets this as a witch meaning to undo her, and her words a prophecy. This event forever haunts her. Soon she is married off to the cruel Mormaer of Moray and gives birth to his son. It is this child of her heart that she must protect from the witch’s prophecy. When Macbeth arrives at the mormaer’s castle, the Lady learns her husband and his men are dead. Macbeth has exacted revenge on his father’s murderer and has arrived to reclaim the castle stolen from his father. But Macbeth falls in love with the Lady, and they marry. He is a loving husband and fully embraces the Lady’s son as his own.
This is a wonderfully atmospheric novel. Morris drops the reader into a fully realized 11th-century world with all the sights and sounds. Carefully chosen words and small details shape this fearful and foreboding world. Through the Lady’s story, we learn about her life shaped by men and the motivations that propelled her into the evil that took over her life. Lady Macbeth’s anger grows in her knowledge that this is not a world for women. This is a rich study of one of the most vilified literary characters.
