My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel

Excellent book. So interesting. Always love it when an author does not tell us everything but just enough.

Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.

Lucy Barton’s story centers on a pivotal time in her life, when she was hospitalized for several weeks with a sudden unnamed illness. Her husband took charge of the household and their two young daughters, and arranged for Lucy’s mother to visit her. She appears unannounced at Lucy’s bedside, providing instant comfort despite their obviously strained relationship. During her stay Lucy reflects on many aspects of her childhood and takes tentative steps to form a different type of relationship with her mother.

As Lucy reveals the emotional scars from her past, we also get tiny glimpses into Lucy’s early adult life, and the years following her hospital stay up to the present. Elizabeth Strout drops tiny details into Lucy’s narrative that sometimes don't have meaning until later, when several dots connect for a surprising emotional impact. The prose is spare and the entire book is less than 200 pages long. Some readers object to this but for me it paradoxically increased the intensity of the story.

My Name is Lucy Barton made me reflect on maternal and marital relationships, the ease with which people can hurt one another, and how difficult it can be to repair the damage. Powerful stuff.

Elizabeth Strout seems to occupy a unique niche. Her stark prose pokes and prods until the reader must sit up and take notice. As the closing line asserts, "this is life". The story emerges from the hospital bed of the narrator. It is a perfect setting for the hurt and healing which occurs there. A complex past catches up to, overwhelms, and then moves on for the patient and the reader. Indeed, this is life!

A mother comes to visit her daughter in the hospital. The daughter is sick with a long-term illness - after some days the mother leaves.

There’s the plot for you. I can’t say I enjoyed this short novel very much. I was bored most of the time and only stayed with it because it was so short.

To me the dominant theme was loneliness - and I would say Strout succeeded with giving a portrait of a woman who have to battle estrangement - being brought up in a home without much love and intimacy. At least while reading I felt the loneliness in my bones. The book is very cold - but maybe that’s exactly what the author wanted to achieve. So I’m a little conflicted as to the rating.

Could be a good one to throw into a book-club - it’s short and I think people are either going to love or hate it.

Oh, and then it’s on some book-list this year. Hmmm…am I getting into trouble here?

Captivated by this book from start to finish. Painful, brilliantly observed, tender, strong and convincing narrative voice...Some books have scenes that are remembered almost as if the memories were my own. I don't know how writers pull that off, but Strout does it here. Not unlike Paul Auster, I find myself eagerly awaiting the next Strout novel, with no doubt that I will read it.

Nothing happened (besides her languishing in a hospital for a couple months not badly sick but not well enough to go home) and she didn't say anything (except that she likes New York, but with no sense of place to show me why). It's like Villette in that the narrator is definitely tiptoeing around something she doesn't want to talk about, except way more obvious and way less interesting. I've got a complicated relationship with my mom and even there, this book didn't do a darn thing for me. Maybe if I already liked the writer or was already invested in this character I would have appreciated almost 200 pages of random musings, but as it was it just bored me.

Lucy Barton is in the hospital when her mother, whom she has not seen in nine years, shows up at the foot of her bed. This serves as a jumping off point for Lucy to reflect back on memories of her life up to this point. She grew up in poverty and suffered traumatic experiences, which left psychological scars. She finds she can process her feelings through writing.

This is a quiet book, which I normally enjoy, but it never quite grabbed me. I found myself drifting off mentally as Lily and her mother engage in gossip about former friends and acquaintances. This novel is about the peaks and valleys of life. The real issues are never addressed directly, even in her thoughts, which I found frustrating. The closest we come is the lingering feeling of isolation. Still, I liked it enough to read more by this author.

I really liked this book, but I'm not sure I can put my finger on exactly why. It was simple, authentic, not showy, and left me wanting to slow down my life to take in more of my surroundings. But I feel like there's a deeper reason why this landed so well with me and I can't figure it out. It read like a memoir without all the details and I found myself with more questions than answers, but also somehow not mad about it?

I don't really know what to think of this. The very loose narrative style, the seemingly random structure, the lack of a real intrigue or plot, ... it's all very confusing. And that may have been deliberately intended by Strout, to achieve the most authentic effect possible (that's how people think and speak). The themes she addresses through Lucy Barton are of course very relevant: poverty, abuse, problematic mother-daughter relationship, fundamental loneliness, marital problems ... But as already indicated: it's all a bit haphazard, piecemeal, without finality in the story. Unless ... she consciously wants to create her own Lucy Barton universe, a very recognizable, very human universe, in which it is 'pleasant' to stay. That ‘pleasant’ is of course dubious, but it is a term that spontaneously comes to mind, certainly because I have also read the sequels of the Lucy Barton series (Oh, William! and Lucy by the Sea), and then it is interesting to see how cleverly Strout picks up her main characters again, further develops and supplements the themes, which makes that specific universe come to life even more. But with this first part I clearly had a lesser experience, or at least not a ‘coup de foudre’ like I had with Olive Kitteridge.

I listened to this is audiobook format.

This short novel is about a woman and her mother and their shared past. They meet after many years in a hospital room and talk for 5 days without ever really saying what they want and need to say. It's about coming to terms with and overcoming your past, forgiving your family, and integrating different parts of your life into one. The writing is fantastic and insightful. This short book packs a punch; it is painful at times, but also cathartic.

Beautifully written. Much unspoken and unsaid.

61% in. Still no story. Depressing characters

I can't say that I liked this book, but I'm glad I read it. In fact, I find that every 12-18 months, I sort of put myself in that position--- to read something totally out of my genre and comfort zone. Maybe I do this to help me be more relatable to lifestyles very different from my own? What usually happens, though, is what happened this time. I find that the stuff in my life that I've stuffed is the stuff that causes me to relate all too well. This is the kind of story that inspires self reflection of the most difficult kind. It forces you to face the stuff you swear you've forgiven.

At first I saw this as a book of weird, stream of consciousness sort of remembrances. I feel like I should know these people? On one hand, it’s all stories of the past—-yet there is zero backstory. I came to learn that the story is the backstory.

Regardless of the stated fact that the Mom in this story loves her daughter, she is emotionally stunted and extremely selfish and she refuses to heal from the obvious generational trauma that is going on there. The toxic thing about all this is that it makes a daughter want to bend over backwards to please her. I understand this completely. This desperation for the one who has rejected you to just prove they love you. Why is that? Have I carried the trauma of my experiences with my parents into my own healthy and happy relationships with my children? Do I try to make up for my hurt when I carry way too much mommy guilt when I'm not able to entertain or please them?

The author describes the sculpture of Ugolino and His Sons. The sons are gathered around their starving father saying, "You can eat us alive --- just please don't be sad, Daddy!" That’s what it’s like. To give up all that is precious in an effort to try to be number one to someone whose number one is themselves. I’m glad I stopped doing that. My relationships with my parents have survived into my mother's older age and my father's death --- but it is because of the boundaries I was wise to construct.

The story also made me think about my recent revelation that relationships between parents and children really are two-way streets. I had to have my own children grow into adults (and have a couple very strong-headed children) to realize this. One of the biggest revelations of my life was the understanding that my actions had hurt my father and it was too late to directly ask his forgiveness.

I understood the response of the emotionally abused Sarah Payne --- "I'm just a writer. That's all." A writer has a gift of communication that is envied by all who lack it. It's a huge thing to be a writer. When we realize that, we soar.

The most heartbreaking part of all of this to me was the narrator's self-reflection about her motherhood after her divorce: "I am the one who left their father, even though at the time I really thought I was just leaving him. But that was foolish thinking, because I left my girls as well, and I left their home." For 32 years, my mother has tried to convince herself, through convincing me, that she didn't leave us kids when she left Dad for the sleazebag. But she did and we both know it. I appreciated the narrator's words. Her acknowledgment is the acknowledgment I’ve yet to hear.

There were several mentions of the Chrysler Building, and it features on the front cover, so I knew there must be some symbolism to it. Having lived most of my life on the west coast and the last 10 years in the South, this meaning was not immediately obvious to me. I looked into it a little and it seems the building is a symbol of New York City's persistent optimism, even in the face of less than optimal circumstances. Perhaps it was used to draw a parallel to Lucy who also seems to be forcedly "happy" in situations a non-traumatized person would see as toxic.

I admit this it not my normal genre, which is coloring my review, but I kept waiting for Lucy to explain what her illness was or give a clue that she was also diagnosed with mental illness or something. The lack of resolution really bothered me. There was also some sidelining but at the same time highlighting of queerness that was a little uncomfortable.

Read for College Cultural Neighborhood Book Club.

I'm still trying to decide if I liked this Lucy Barton book or not.
On the one hand, I liked the way the book flowed, with short chapters skipping back and forth. It felt literary without being Literary.
On the other hand - the exclamation points! Which arrive out of nowhere! Perhaps to make you feel the book has a conversational tone, which frankly it doesn't quite have. Instead, you get repetition of noun phrases - a typical sentence might run: "I looked at the flowers on the table. 'Look at the flowers on the table,' I said to my mother. She closed her eyes instead of looking at the flowers on the table." It's a bit as if somebody read Hemingway and thought they could do the same thing.
The other issue - this is a short book, and I don't quite know what was the initial charge in writing it other than to touch on as many topics as possible. As well as the central mother-daughter relationship, there are aspects of modern medicine, modern fashion, modern art, the Nazis in World War Two, Vietnam, the gay movement, the AIDS epidemic, gender relations and marriage, and - for very little reason that I could see - mention of 9/11. Was Strout trying to pack the great American novel into 190 pages of large type?
I'm glad I read the book - it felt rewarding at times - but I don't think it got me anywhere, and if it did, it certainly wasn't somewhere new.

This short novel has made me want to rewrite everything I’ve ever tried to write. Somehow Stroud manages to NOT say things so powerfully fully half of the time I was reading this book I was awash in memories of my own, trying to tease out the wisdom to be found there.
That said, by the end I was gnashing my teeth a bit- I wanted more detail about what was happening in Lucy’s life- why didn’t her daughters visit her in the hospital? Were her mother’s stories about marriages gone bad a warning about Lucy’s absent husband? How would she have known anything about Lucy’s family, given they never seemed to interact?
Trauma is rarely so well-illustrated in text and this book is remarkable for that, for the way Stroud brushes light touches of tragedy across seemingly benign scenes. When Lucy’s father is dying and comments about what a good girl she was, her sister leaves the room. That line alone says so much about families…and Lucy’s family in particular.
A high residue book. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.
Not sure if I’m grateful for that…

Some years ago I read Olive Kitteridge and thought it was a really good book, one that made me think outside of my experience. I started this about a year later, but only read half before leaving, perhaps because I was reading a more engaging collection of Alan Bennett’s essays simultaneously. Anyway, I have now read the whole book over a couple of days.
For me, like Olive, Lucy Barton is not a sympathetic character and although there is much of her character that I can’t relate to, there is much of interest, especially the use of education to escape your circumstances, but the consequent feeling of exile. For me Lucy is an intriguing character, and I will be reading at least the sequel.

The book is written in short, spare chapters, but it made me think, I kept pausing and considering what I was being told. Although the story is mainly set over five days when her mother visits Lucy in hospital in the 1980’s, the story was both contemporary (looking back from about thirty years later when Lucy has become a successful author) and historical (looking back at Lucy’s childhood in the early early sixties, when the family had lived in poverty in the fictional rural town of Amgash, Illinois).
At first I was unsure of what the book would be about, but quickly realised that it is the story of a damaged family, damaged by trauma inflicted upon the father during the Second World War, as well as poverty. But the story is approached obliquely, and the reader needs to be patient (as I wasn’t on my first attempt).
This is also a book about a certain type of ruthlessness and something about its consequences, although I suspect the consequences may be considered more deeply in the sequels.

This is a New York story too.

Updated review:

“I have sometimes been sad that Tennessee Williams wrote that line for Blanche DuBois, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Many of us have been saved many times by the kindness of strangers, but after a while it sounds trite, like a bumper sticker. And that’s what makes me sad, that a beautiful and true line comes to be used so often that it takes on the superficial sound of a bumper sticker.”

Lucy Barton awoke to find her estranged mother at her bedside after having surgery to remove her infected appendix. Her husband was caring for the two children aged 5 and 6 and called mother to come to see her. It was an unexpected and awkward experience since her mother sat with her for 5 days. Lucy presently lived a totally different life from which she was raised. The book explores her past challenges and how she managed to achieve her dreams by leaving her past behind. There are many characters which are further explained in the book 2, Anything is Possible. After reading that book I was able to put this book into context since there are more characters discussed which initially seemed insignificant. In book 2, they provide further history into the life from which Lucy escaped by explaining how their lives were affected by staying in that environment. Through hard work and determination, Lucy received a scholarship to attend college to pursue her dreams of being a writer. In New York, Lucy became an accomplished author married William who was from Massachusetts having 2 daughters, Christina and Becca.

Lucy comes to understand how the past tends to repeat itself over generations. She grew up poor and hungry living in a garage until her great uncle dies and they move into his house. Lucy learns that her mother was raised under similar circumstances. How does a person learn about social norms if there’s no one to teach you? Lucy’s mother provides an update on the history of the many colorful characters of her hometown. Their convoluted storylines and their relationship to Lucy didn’t become apparent to me until I read book two. Ultimately, book three wraps it all up to complete the story.

2016 review 3/5
Unfortunately, this is my second book by this author and I did not like the Burgess Boys, either. I really tried and wanted to like this story. The author's writing does not appeal to me as her thoughts seem to wander from topic to topic. Although there is a story buried within all the jumbled words, I felt apathetic and no compassion for the characters.

Unfortunately, this is my second book by this author and I did not like the Burgess Boys, either. I really tried and wanted to like this story. The author's writing does not appeal to me as her thoughts seem to wander from topic to topic. Although there is a story buried within all the jumbled words, I felt apathetic and no compassion for the characters.

My Name Is Lucy Barton begins with our narrator, Lucy Barton sharing details about how in New York City in the 1980s, an infection after routine surgery for removing her appendix leads to her being hospitalized for nine weeks. Her estranged mother, whom she hasn’t seen for years, travels to New York City from Amgash, Illinois and stays with her for five days, never leaving her bedside. Her mother’s presence triggers Lucy’s memories of her past, inspires her to reflect on her present and motivates her to contemplate her future.

“This must be the way most of us maneuver through the world, half knowing, half not, visited by memories that can’t possibly be true.”

Lucy’s childhood was one marked by abject poverty and abuse. Dysfunctional family dynamics, no friends and being looked down upon by her peers on account of her family’s poor living conditions (her family in the garage of a relative till the age of eleven), push her to concentrate on her books and academics, an endeavor results in her winning a scholarship to college. She is able to make a good life for herself away from the bleak memories of her past. Given her humble beginnings and unhappy childhood, Lucy is sensitive to how other people treat her. She acknowledges and remains grateful for even the smallest gestures of kindness she has experienced from teachers, neighbors and others in the course of her life. Lucy's relationship with her mother is complicated. They have been estranged for years and her mother is now at her bedside after Lucy's husband calls her. Her mother's bedside conversations revolve around news and gossip about cousins, neighbors and other people in their hometown. Though Lucy does bring up more personal topics including her accomplishments as a writer having recently published two stories, her mother does not engage in any deep discussion of Lucy’s childhood or openly appreciate her accomplishments as an adult. The visit is short and her mother abruptly decides to leave after five days. It is not as if mother and daughter reconcile or suddenly become close friends, but there is no denying the fact that Lucy loves her mother deeply and her mother does care for Lucy. Lucy craves affection from her mother, and though her mother remains reserved in her demeanor in this regard, this visit impacts Lucy’s life in that her mother’s presence, the sound of her voice and even the moments spent in silence provide Lucy with comfort and enable her to confront her own emotions, also reflecting on her own role as a mother of two daughters and take stock of her marriage which isn’t exactly perfect. Families are complicated and mother-daughter relationships can be more so and the author does a magnificent job is exploring the same through Lucy and her mother. Love might not always be expressed or may be expressed in a manner different from what we may be able to comprehend, which is painful – but that does not mean it is not there.

“ Because we all love imperfectly.”

Elizabeth Strout’s My Name Is Lucy Barton is a short but impactful novel. The author’s prose is simple yet beautiful and elegant. Though Lucy’s memories are shared through a series of non-linear, often disjoint flashbacks, the author manages to paint a beautiful picture of Lucy's life. In Lucy Barton, the author creates an emotional but resilient character who feels real and relatable. This is a beautifully written story, concise, with a fluid narrative and superb characterization. I’d been planning to read this book ever since its release in 2016 but have been procrastinating. I’ve always believed in the cathartic effect that reading the right book at the right time could have on you. I found this to be a moving and thought-provoking read that struck a personal chord with me and I am glad I finally picked it up. I look forward to reading Elizabeth Strout’s other books featuring Lucy Barton.

“But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can’t even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: This is mine, this is mine, this is mine.”

The story of Lucy seems simple because the way it is written is swift and dynamic; however, it is a life full of emotions, many of them repressed; truths that leave a mark, sometimes with a lot of pain. Lucy learned to be strong, to be a writer, unfortunately, alone. Her life, her disappointments make the story merely the testimony of a great strength that sometimes seems like resignation. (Translated from Spanish)

Thanks so much to Libro.fm, Random House and Penguin Random House Audio for letting me listen and review this book. This was a very short and quick read, but very poignant, deep and thoughtful.
I found myself deep in thought and identifying more than I expected to with this story.
I related to the character being in the hospital after a serious health concern arises that she has to have taken care of with surgery with her appendix and being alone in the hospital then waking up to find her mother there, who she has a strained relationship with and hasn't been in touch with for a while it seems.
This short book is the story of this character's stay in the hospital while she recovers from her appendix having been removed and complication of minor infection and how her mother shows up for her even though they have a strained and complicated relationship. Of course what mother/daughter isn't complicated to some extent.
The character, Lucy Barton, reflects a lot on her childhood and growing up, her parents, how she was raised and how she is with her own two children. She talks a lot with her mother while in the hospital since her husband hates hospitals, is working and taking care of the kids - he's the one who calls and asks her mother to sit with her in the hospital while she's recovering.
Her husband comes and visits and brings the kids, they talk and visit and leave, but there are these other deep, poignant feelings that are brought out in conversations and by spending all this time with her mother while in her hospital bed. She tries to confront and talk with her mother about things from the past, but can't always find a way to talk with her mother about them and also talks about feeling lonely from her life especially from growing up and not feeling as much love as she wanted from her mother and trying to figure out how to be a writer, writing, publishing, being a mom, being herself and everything else and I can relate so much to this on a lot of levels.
I was very surprised by how much is packed into this short story and how deep, thoughtful and poignant it all is.
I can't really explain it all, but it's worth checking out and it doesn't take long to listen to and it will definitely leave an impression on you that you likely won't forget, I know I haven't.

A small novel of great emotional intensity. A mother and an adult daughter, in the present, but invaded by the violence and ferocity of a distant past that imposes its fears, barriers, and silences. A final attempt to save the love that binds them above resentment and pain. (Translated from Spanish)

2/5⭐
This book got me out of a reading slump.
It is a book that tells the story of Lucy while she is hospitalized for an unknown condition, and her mother, whom she hasn't seen in a long time, comes to take care of her.
It is a series of tales, interwoven with the present, the past, and part of the future of the protagonist's life. I didn't understand the plot, nor the connection of the tales; in the same story, different things were told that lost me.
It is a book that states many truths, and that the relationships we have with other people are simply relationships; there is no perfection in them, and I completely agree with that.
I was entertained, it reads quickly, but it didn't convince me much. (Translated from Spanish)

I liked the book, but I'm sure I didn't understand some of what Strout was trying to get across. Very short book, but I appreciate that. I liked the language and the rhythm of the writing, and I felt like I really liked Lucy -- although at the same time I wasn't really sure who she really was.

"It interests me how we find ways to feel superior to another person, another group of people. It happens everywhere and all the time. Whatever we call it, I think that it's the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down."

After complications from surgery, Lucy Barton has to stay in the hospital for 9 weeks. She has not seen her mother in many years, but her husband asks her mother to come keep her company in the hospital. For several days Lucy's mother sits with her in the hospital, occasionally conversing, and evoking memories of her difficult early life for Lucy.

Lucy came from poverty, but was able to go to college and now leads a normal "middle-class" life. Her mother and father and the rest of her family remain in poverty. Her mother is taciturn, does not express emotion, has withheld affection from her children, yet Lucy craves her love. As she lies in the hospital bed, she contemplates her childhood of poverty, abuse, and how she ultimately arrived where she is now.

Strout tells the story in short episodic vignettes. I thought that this was a very good portrait of a difficult mother/daughter relationship, and of the longing for love and acceptance that a childhood without love causes.

First line: "There was a time, and it was many years ago now, when I had to stay in a hospital for almost nine weeks."

Last line: "All life amazes me."
3 1/2 stars

I don't often read literary fiction so this is a departure. Reading it somehow brings back memories of my childhood sitting around the picnic table with the adults listening to their gossip, a pleasant but odd reaction.

The Short of It:

Trauma takes many forms.

The Rest of It:

Lucy Barton is hospitalized for an unknown illness which has taken a bad turn. An infection, most likely. Her short hospital stay turns into several days which prompts her mother to show up at the hospital. Lucy’s husband William is at home with their children, but he, for whatever reason does not like hospital visits and decides not to come. Instead, he pays for Lucy’s mom to show up.

This, in itself is strange. Lucy and her mother have a strange relationship to say the least. Growing up in poverty, and being exposed to some strange behavior has caused damage that Lucy does her best to live with, but it’s always there and from her hospital bed she carefully observes her mother at the foot of her bed, wondering how they got there.

There’s not a lot of action in this story. It’s mostly a “thinking” story. As Lucy considers the life she’s lived, you as the reader will also consider the choices you’ve made as a wife, mother, sibling. From the outside looking in, it’s clear that this family has a lot of things to work through but do they want to? In Lucy’s case, yes because she is trying not to repeat the same mistakes with her own children but you get the impression that she’s not succeeding all that well.

We read this for book club and although it wasn’t enjoyed by all, it gave us plenty to talk about. There are two other books by this author that include the same characters, Anything is Possible, Oh William! and Lucy by the Sea which just came out. I liked the book enough to pick up the other books but it’s definitely not a happy story and a little sad here and there.

I have reread this novel as a precursor to reading the new Amgash novel, "Oh, William" and am surprised to find that I never reviewed it before this. It is the story of Lucy, who grew up in extreme poverty with a distant mother and a father traumatized by war, but who manages to escape her circumstances and become a successful writer. The novel takes place as the older Lucy looks back on a period when she was hospitalized for two months, during which time her mother visited briefly, really her only adult contact with her mother. The author uses this episode to explore the ways experiences, dreams and encounters, often brief, shape us into the people we become, and the rather mystical intersection between what actually happens in our lives and what we want to believe happened. It is an elegant and spare novel, with nothing extraneous with a good use of white space, on the page in my physical copy, but also in the writing, a space that emphasizes how it is the liminal moments that are critical, the things unsaid, and what we chose to make of them that make us who we are.

In this novel, Lucy Barton tells her life story in memories, conversations with her mother, and events that occur. The writing is beautiful.

We start with Lucy narrating her 9 week hospitalization and her estranged mother visiting at her bedside. Then the story weaves back to her childhood in Amgash, Illinois (were they really living in a garage) and forward again to her life in New York as a writer, and then back again. Crumbs are left along the way in each chapter, as the reader pieces together - just who is Lucy Barton?