So what the hell’s going on? This is all very confusing.įirst, here’s the plot, the whole plot, and nothing but the plot: Lucy (the storyteller) is lying in the hospital and her estranged mother comes from afar and sits there for five days. Every page I reread seemed rich and wow-y.

But after sticking my nose back into the book, I’m changing my tune. When I finished this book, I didn’t think I landed in wowsville. I am grateful to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy. I doubt whether I can do justice in this review to Strout's intelligent and meaningful perceptions about the human condition so you'll have to read it yourself when it is published in January, 2016. In many ways the story is about her writing, but it is also about leaving when you need to, about coming to terms with who you are -the sum total of your past and present. She's a mother who loves her children and she is a writer. What I found to be extraordinary about Lucy is that in spite of the past, she knows and has pretty much always known who and what she is. We learn not only about Lucy's past but her present - her marriage and her children but about the capacity for love when it seems an improbable thing. What passes between mother and daughter in these five days while they talk about friends, cousins and marriages that didn't work out, among other things, is pretty amazing. This is when her mother, whom she hasn't seen for many years comes to visit her in the hospital in New York. Lucy remembers hers childhood as the narrative progressives and it moves from present to various times in her past, most notably when she is in the hospital for an extended period of time after routine surgery. There are too few glimpses of joy in this complex, dysfunctional family but yet Lucy still can't help but think, 'how our roots were twisted so tenaciously around one another's hearts. She carries the burdens of a none too happy childhood, one of poverty and sometimes abuse, sheltered from the outside world in many ways.

It's painfully sad at times in her reminiscences of her life growing up in Amgash, Illinois. She's someone I'd want to know and a character I'll remember. In this short book I came to know what an extraordinary character Lucy Barton is. I also thought when I first met Lucy Barton that this was going to be a story about an ordinary woman.

It is after all written by Elizabeth Strout. When I first started reading this I had the feeling that it was going to be a remarkable story.

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