My Name Is Lucy Barton

My Name Is Lucy Barton is perfectly described by Joy Williams’s first rule of writing: "There should be a clean clear surface with much disturbance below." I loved this book immediately. I loved every word of it, and I read it twice in a row. Recommended By Britt A., Powells.com

Elizabeth Strout gives us the story of one woman's life — daughter, child, adult, wife, mother, patient, author — in My Name Is Lucy Barton. As Lucy recovers from a long illness in the hospital, her mother comes to visit; they've never been close, and Lucy's childhood was abysmal. Reminiscing about stories of their hometown, Lucy and her mother make a shaky, uneasy peace, but will it last? Told in straightforward, clear prose, Strout produces another beautiful read.  Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com

A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all — the one between mother and daughter.
 
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.

Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge, as well as The Burgess Boys, a New York Times bestseller; Abide with Me, a national bestseller; and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in England. Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including The New Yorker and O: The Oprah Magazine. Elizabeth Strout lives in New York City.