shirleytupperfreeman 's review for:

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

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Elizabeth Strout has written a pandemic novel with Lucy Barton (from My Name is Lucy Barton) as the protagonist. As with most (all?) of Strout's books, characters from one novel appear in another, so Olive Kittredge, for instance, makes an appearance here. Lucy, now in her sixties, is whisked away from Manhattan by her ex-husband William. The two spend the early months of the pandemic in an isolated cottage in a small town on the Maine coast. They share concerns for their grown daughters, make new friends and visit old ones by walking outside and deal with all the conflicting emotions that isolation brings. One of Lucy's new friends has a different perspective on vaccines than Lucy has. The characters deal with many of the same questions and concerns that most of us had a mere year or two ago. Most of the 'action' in this story takes place inside Lucy's head. I listened to this one and occasionally found the narrator's style irritating but that's a matter of personal taste.