![]() But soon enough-only twelve pages in, in fact-I found I couldn’t put the book down. I wasn’t convinced that the novel would have enough in it compel me to read beyond my apprehensions and anxieties. ![]() ![]() So I began reading the book, even though I was aware that I was holding back a bit, not allowing myself to be completely drawn in. A chance to spend time in another world, one that may well have its own chaos and trouble, but one that is distinctly not the one we’re living in.īut because Elizabeth Strout is Elizabeth Strout, and Lucy Barton is Lucy Barton, I couldn’t resist. Fiction during this time has been a solace for me, a retreat. It’s too soon, somehow it’s all too familiar. But this novel is Lucy’s journey through the first year of the pandemic, and I have struggled reading fiction about the pandemic. There is a strength and an honesty to Lucy’s voice that I greatly admire the first-person voice is used perfectly to define and delineate character. The Lucy in the title is Lucy Barton, of course, who first appeared in My Name is Lucy Barton (2016), then tangentially in Anything is Possible (2017), and finally in Oh William! (2021), which was published less than a year ago. ![]() I love Strout’s work, and I’ve read all her books. When I first read about Lucy by the Sea, Elizabeth Strout’s newest novel-out today-my heart sank a little. ![]()
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