30 Books in 30 Days Day 12: "My Name is Lucy Barton"
- bostonbookworm22
- Aug 1, 2017
- 2 min read
Inspired by yesterday’s review and recent languid summer days, we’ll continue the trend of simplicity with today’s review of Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton. I first read Strout in her Pulitzer-winning Olive Kitteridge, a lush and graceful portrait of small town life—and one woman in particular—in Maine.
Last year’s Lucy Barton is every bit as well-crafted as Olive Kitteridge, if the subject matter is somewhat more painful. This is the story of a woman, the titular Lucy Barton, who in reminiscing over her relationship with her mother recalls a pivotal time in her life, when she suffered from a mysterious illness and was hospitalized in New York City. Then, while her children were young and her marriage fresh, her mother came to visit her for five days, after years of estrangement.
The novel elevates the quotidian, showcasing the ineffable beauty of a mother/daughter bond. Lucy and her mother talk constantly during the visit—they talk about everything and nothing. They gossip good-naturedly, reminisce about people from their town, chat about the nurses in the hospital. It’s constant chatter, ambient noise of maternal love and presence that soothes Lucy. They never talk about what’s dark and delicate in their family: about Lucy’s father’s abusive history, about her brother’s mental troubles, about the poverty in which they were steeped when she was a child. They never talk about why they haven’t seen each other for years.
Strout conveys as much, if not more, in what she doesn’t say as in what she does. The novel presents many gaps and questions and puzzles for the reader, and it doesn’t fill all of them. There’s a respect Strout offers her characters, and to her readers: there’s no hand-holding here, no neat tidying of loose ends. She treats her readers like adults, which is both refreshing and somewhat painful. Like Lucy, we as readers want a modicum more—we want to be nurtured, just a bit, and yes, perhaps, loved.
Rating: 4/5.
