Every time I read Elizabeth Strout, I feel like I’m in the middle of a long, deep, conversation with a close friend — like she’s revealing parts of her soul to me, or sharing insights into somebody else’s, or saying something I relate to so thoroughly, I feel more seen than I ever have before.
Oh William! is about a divorced late-middle-aged couple taking a road trip. After ending their marriage of 20 years, Lucy and William remained friends. So, when his young third wife leaves him, recently-widowed Lucy accompanies William to look for a half-sister he had previously not known he had. The novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize this year, is about Lucy and William’s relationship — the early years of dating, their marriage and how it devolved, and the deep friendship they found after their divorce.
Lucy Barton is one of Strout’s most poignant characters. She’s a successful writer living in New York who grew up in terribly bleak poverty. She first appears in My Name is Lucy Barton (2016) which is set in a hospital where Lucy is recovering and where her estranged mother comes to visit. The difficulties of their lives and mother-daughter relationship are revealed through their conversation. We learn of the lives of her siblings and their inability to escape their circumstances like Lucy in Anything is Possible (2017), a novel of interconnected stories about a community of people in Maine and Illinois where characters from all nine of Strout’s novels are largely from.
After reading the three books, I feel like I know Lucy Barton — as I do Strout’s other famous character Olive Kitteridge but with more tenderness. A fourth — Lucy by the Sea — was published a few months ago and I’m reading it as soon as I can before there’s a new one. (Strout has been producing a book almost every year these last few years, which seems impossible, really, considering how she pries apart people and feelings with exquisite sensitivity.)
{{/usCountry}}After reading the three books, I feel like I know Lucy Barton — as I do Strout’s other famous character Olive Kitteridge but with more tenderness. A fourth — Lucy by the Sea — was published a few months ago and I’m reading it as soon as I can before there’s a new one. (Strout has been producing a book almost every year these last few years, which seems impossible, really, considering how she pries apart people and feelings with exquisite sensitivity.)
{{/usCountry}}Saudamini Jain is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi.