All Our Yesterdays

DEBUT In this audacious debut novel, Morris imagines the prehistory of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. Macbeth killed her first husband, who was a brute. Thane of Moray at last, Macbeth married her. It was a marriage of promise: Macbeth loved her, she him; she raised her son as his own. Relations with the king, Duncan, were good. The son is happy until by accident he learns that his mother had hidden the truth from him—it was Macbeth who killed his father. He rejects her but soon is found dead in the stable, his head caved in. Lady Macbeth’s life loses spice. Even love flees. Estate and honors no longer matter. Trapped in grief, she sees nothing ahead for her but life without meaning. Her cousin Macduff succeeds in reawakening her ambition—but only for destruction henceforth. The king visits. Her husband returns from war. Macbeth has met the witches, heard their prophecies. Nothing but devastation will follow but none of it has happened yet.