![]() ![]() She weaves bleakness into the novel carefully, steering you gently into the saddest of places. Instead, it captures the essence of a character, and the story of her life is laid out within the book’s pages. And we did not have a television and we did not have newspapers or magazines or books in the house.’ This description of the plot might sound to some readers terribly dull or slow-moving, but the novel is neither. Protagonist Lucy Barton is reflecting on her life specifically, on a period in the 1980s when she was in hospital for nine weeks and her mother came to visit, bringing with her stories and memories from Lucy’s troubled childhood: ‘We were oddities, our family, even in that tiny rural town of Amgash, Illinois … we did not have any neighbors nearby. It’s also deceiving on the surface, it’s a very quiet book, a character study without a clear plot. My Name is Lucy Barton is a short gut-punch of a novel. ![]() Now I’ve read Strout’s new novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, and I can confidently say I think it will be one of the best books I read this year. It was one of the best books I read in 2015. Last year, I read Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, and I was blown away. ![]()
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