Elizabeth Strout’s novel is almost like a person in book form: “My Name is Lucy Barton”, it announces, and, if you read it, you’ll hear all about Lucy’s life. The story, such as it is, jumps around episodically from childhood to the present but it’s mostly about the time when Lucy was in hospital during the ‘80s, was visited by her estranged elderly mother and the two got to know each other over the course of several days.
I’ve never read Strout before but she’s got some impressive blurbs - Alice Munro and Richard Bausch - and she won the Pulitzer for her novel Olive Kitteridge, so I feel like I’m missing something with My Name is Lucy Barton. I thought it was a fine novel but I’m also left wondering what the point was and also a bit underwhelmed as to what the book turned out to be: a string of reminiscences in a fairly ordinary woman’s life. And, given the pedigree of this author, I believe she probably did have a point and I just missed it?
It’s a book about people - Lucy and the people in her life - and Strout certainly captures the nuances and subtleties of human behaviour. Lucy’s mother is an especially complex portrait - distant but also warm at times, there for her daughter in her time of need but with nothing in common with her, both with storied pasts. I think I see why Strout might be so lauded now: she’s able to capture the intricacies of relationships in a way that’s convincing and real. Because I certainly have layered relationships with my nearest and dearest, as do almost all of us, I imagine. That shows a high level of skill in the writing.
Because it’s a very meandering narrative, and I had no idea what it was driving at, it’s quite easy to put down if certain chapters don’t grab you, as was the case here. Your mileage may vary but I wasn’t that taken with the numerous stories of their neighbours or Lucy being a student and a mother. The AIDS epidemic and 9/11 are included as Lucy becomes a New Yorker in adulthood, but neither are treated in a unique or different way than has been seen many times elsewhere.
But Strout produced a compelling vision of Lucy’s family in the fictional small town of Amgash, Illinois, growing up dirt poor, living in a tiny house, and the memories she has of certain moments over the course of growing up that informs how her siblings turned out - a bitter sister, a traumatised, possibly closeted, brother - and two parents who remained forever distant. Lucy herself is a Matilda-type, precociously intelligent from a bad home who eventually becomes a bestselling author, and what that does to her already-strained family relationship is surprisingly sad.
And I enjoyed Lucy’s friendship with fictional writer Sarah Payne the most, who helped guide her on her way to success. I think if a writer leaves you hanging on a particular character’s fate and you find yourself wondering what became of them after you put the book down, they’ve done something special, and that’s how I felt about this character. Did her tiredness in those classes signal something fatal or was it benign?
There’s more to this novel than I’ll get into here, just like there’s more to life than is contained within a novel, but suffice it to say it’s a varied collection of myriad individuals’ stories, some interesting, some less so. It’s elegantly written - clear, somewhat restrained prose that never verges on the purple yet manages to express scenes and dialogue powerfully - but, despite having Literary stamped all over it, it’s also a very accessible read that almost anyone could pick up and get along with.
This is one of those books that I appreciated more than I enjoyed, which is why I’m giving it a middling rating, but I also didn’t dislike reading it - it was just a bit too plain for my liking. I like more zest in my novels - that said, I’m also going to read the next book in this series, so I’m leaning more towards the good than the bad with this one. If you’re in the mood for a quietly-sketched modern character portrait full of somewhat rustic anecdotes, along the lines of more classic American literature, My Name is Lucy Barton is worth introducing yourself to.
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