Before we left for Mexico, I loaded a series of four books by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Elizabeth Strout, onto my Kindle.

My Name is Lucy Barton

Elizabeth Strout

The first book in the series, My Name is Lucy Barton, reads like a memoir to such an extent that when I finished it, I actually researched the author to find out whether or not it was autobiographical. Though there are parallels, particularly in the facts that, like Strout, Lucy Barton is a writer and both were raised in rural areas somewhat isolated from other children, the similarities end there.

When Lucy Barton spends several weeks in hospital recuperating from what should have been a simple operation, her mother, who she has not seen or spoken with for several years comes to visit. As they chat, Lucy dredges up memories from her childhood in rural Illinois; memories of growing up in abject poverty, spending the first years of her life living with her family in a one room garage, being abused by her father who suffered from PTSD as the result of his time in World War II, being told by her classmates that “your family stinks” and sitting alone in a classroom to do her homework long after everyone else had left because it was better than being at home.

Exquisitely told in the first person, this is a story of coming to terms with family trauma. Though there is much that Lucy and her mother can’t or don’t discuss, it also becomes a story of reconciliation and love between mother and daughter.

The second book in the series, Anything is Possible, isn’t really a sequel. Instead, it’s a series of connected short stories about the people of the fictional town of Amgash, Illinois where Lucy Barton grew up. Lucy, herself, appears in only one of these stories when, after being absent for seventeen years, she returns to visit the siblings she left behind. The third book, Oh William!, continues the story of her life and explores her relationship, both past and present, with her first husband, William. The final book, Lucy by the Sea, which I started reading on the plane on the way home from Mexico yesterday and haven’t finished yet, might be my favourite. Perhaps that’s because the characters have become so familiar to me or maybe it’s because the topic is so timely. When the pandemic hit New York, the city that became Lucy’s home after she left Amgash, William convinces her to escape with him to an isolated house on the coast of Maine. Not taking the threat as seriously as he does, she reluctantly agrees thinking that she’ll be there only a week or two. Weeks soon stretch into months, but I can’t tell you how the story ends because I haven’t got there yet!

Elizabeth Strout describes her writing style as that of “an embroiderer”. “I will pick it up and embroider a little green line, and come back later and embroider a leaf or something… I always write by scenes, and I never write anything from beginning to end.” In the end, however, she presents the reader with a complete and complex story written in a confiding conversational tone that creates a feeling of intimacy between character and reader. I can hardly wait to read more of her books!