My Name is Lucy Barton

My name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Reviewed by Omma
📘📗📕📒

The story begins in the hospital where Lucy's estranged mother (at the request of her husband) comes to visit Lucy for 5 days. The conversation is mainly filled with small stories and idle gossip of people she once knew in the small town Amgash, Illinois where her family still lives. They never seem to transcend into deeper conversations and so much goes unsaid but the first person narrative allows us insight into Lucy's thoughts and feelings. The book regularly flits between her incredibly poor upbringing, present day in the hospital room and then into the future. Her story is about poverty, abuse and difficult familial relationships without going into real detail about her childhood. She would speak about small incidents whilst making sure you know she's holding so much back. Although she manages to escape through education and make a new life for herself in New York, the visit from her mother leaves her doubting the life she's made. Lucy is a powerful narrator who recalls her difficult life with such tenderness while remaining stoic. Strout's writing is beautifully simplistic yet relatable in how true her characters and their relationships are. This was such a subtle and gentle book while leaving a lasting impression on me. I really enjoyed this and will definitely re-read this (since it took me less than a day!).