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siria's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.75
A spare, melancholy book about the tension between feeling the impulse to precisely observe people and events and the elusive nature of memory; about how much you can feel for those whose lives briefly intersect with yours and whom you never see again, and the terrible push-pull between family members who find one another mutually incomprehensible. My Name is Lucy Barton is about bonds and isolation, explored as the eponymous narrator recounts both a lengthy stint she endured in hospital in New York in the '80s, and her impoverished and abusive childhood in '60s rural Illinois. Elizabeth Strout is very good at showing/not-showing the elisions, the sidlings up to and away from the painful things. As I read I found myself admiring Strout's restraint as a writer. However, although I liked the novel and the unresolved nature of the ending clearly signposts the further books that are to come in this series, I don't find myself pulled to continue reading about Lucy and her family—in a strange way, I think My Name is Lucy Barton told me everything I need to know about them.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse and Domestic abuse
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