My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout Published by Random House on January 12th 2016
Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction
Pages: 208
Format: eBook, Kindle Book
Source: NetGalley & Random House
A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter. Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.
**Special thanks to NetGalley & Random House for supplying my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**
My Name is Lucy Barton is a book I find hard to write a review for. First of all let me start with this. This is a very well written book. In just 200 pages Elizabeth Strout writes what feels like a memoir by Lucy Barton. It comes packed with a lot of emotions that touch you deeply right from the start.
Lucy is nice and sweet yet still captivated by the trauma of her tough childhood and growing up events. Right from the start you get attached to Lucy and you want to know more. It’s like sitting with your best friend while he tells you small details about his life. A very friendly and heart taking talk. You want to know how her childhood was. You want her to tell you how she went through a poor and love lacking family. And you can relate everything to your life. You don’t need to have the same sufferings. You can have a very different life, yet you still reflect back on the very small details that you thought you’d buried long time ago.
Lucy starts with her memories about the surgery she had back in the 1980s. From this point she keeps reflecting on incidents back in her childhood and also forth after the surgery time. They seem to be too many separate memories and incidents. However they are all linked together with a delicate string. They all shaped Lucy’s character and her perception of her surroundings. As Lucy rethinks those memories again, she can see things differently. But isn’t this the case with all of us.
About Elizabeth Strout
ELIZABETH STROUT is the author of several novels, including: Abide with Me, a national bestseller and BookSense pick, and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in England. In 2009 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her book Olive Kitteridge. Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including The New Yorker. She teaches at the Master of Fine Arts program at Queens University of Charlotte.