My Rating: 5 stars
After reading both of the Olive Kitteridge books a few years back, I immediately put Elizabeth Strout on my list of favorite authors. As I had mentioned at that time, I've had most of Strout's works on my TBR for a while, but hadn't gotten around to reading all of them. Now I am slowly working my way through her backlist and decided to pick up My Name is Lucy Barton next, mostly because I got approved for an ARC of Strout's newest book publishing this month and it is a more direct sequel to that book (though technically the third in the entire series) so I want to make sure I read it first.
I was actually surprised by how short this book was (less than 200 pages), yet it packed such a punch in terms of depth of the story as well as its characters. Strout is a masterful writer and just like she did with Olive Kitteridge, she once again creates a realistically flawed yet highly memorable character in the form of Lucy Barton. While recovering in the hospital from what she thought would be a simple operation, Lucy is surprised to see her mother, from whom she had been estranged for many years, go visit her and sit by her bedside for several days. Together, mother and daughter reminisce and gossip about various friends from Lucy's childhood growing up in Amgash, Illinois (though they are careful to skirt around the specific issues that had caused Lucy to escape her troubled family and move to New York after marriage). The visit from her mother, though brief, leads Lucy to reflect upon various aspects of her life — from recognizing the impact of the poverty and abuse that she grew up with, to seeing the vulnerabilities present in her marriage, to realizing her desire to become a writer, to understanding that even her unconditional love for her own two daughters does not guarantee that love will always be reciprocated.
Many of the struggles that Lucy reflects upon are ones that many of us can relate to, regardless of differences in background and status. With that said, Lucy's role as a daughter and the nuances of her relationship with her mother resonated the most with me, as there were quite a few moments where I recognized aspects of her relationship with her mom (and with her family as a whole) that were similar to what I had experienced. One particular conversation that Lucy had with her mom especially jolted me — the one where Lucy uses a certain word that surprises her mother, who in turn, comments that she must have learned to use that word after moving to the big city, to which Lucy replied that she didn't have to move to a big city to learn such things. In that moment, Lucy could've called her mom out on her "willful ignorance" of the things that were happening under her roof at the time (things that contributed to the strain in their relationship all these years), yet she chose to keep her mouth shut. Reflecting on this moment later, Lucy writes "I suspect I said nothing because I was doing what I have done most of my life, which is to cover for the mistakes of others when they don't know they have embarrassed themselves." In reading this, I realized this is exactly what I've been doing with people in my own life, but especially with my mother whenever she says things (often in front of others) that are hurtful or insulting — in that one sentence, Strout (through Lucy) helped put words to something I've struggled with for a long time. It is the power of being able to experience resonant moments like these that motivates me to be a lifelong reader — constantly learning, understanding, and reflecting on various aspects of my own life.
I know Strout wrote another book, Anything is Possible, that is a continuation of Lucy's story in a sense, though she is only a small part of that book in that she returns to her hometown to visit her siblings, but mostly it is a collection of short stories about people she reunites with there. While I do intend to read this second book at some point, I'm actually more excited to read her newest book, Oh William!, where Lucy tells her first husband's story. Definitely can't wait!
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