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My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)

Elizabeth Strout

Start date: July 16, 2017

Finish date: July 19, 2017

Discussion: July 2017: Award Winners

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July 2017: Award Winners

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By Anita · 1 post · 27 views

last updated Jul 01, 2017 03:06AM

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins 4 + stars again.
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last updated Aug 07, 2017 12:41PM

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What Members Thought

Jun 12, 2017 Liz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley

I listened to this and it augmented the feeling that I was listening in on someone else’s conversation or being part of a one sided conversation. Like a conversation, the book meandered from thought to thought, bringing up different people and past events. This is the trademark of Elizabeth Strout's work, these somewhat interconnected stories.

I had read All Things Are Possible before this book, so a lot of the names felt like familiar old friends whose history I already knew.

Despite her strang ...more

105 likes · Like · see review

Jul 02, 2016 Michael rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, family-relationships, new-york-city, illinois

A quiet but moving reverie by a resilient woman on various timepoints in her life, revealing the distorted lens by which she views life around her and the troubling experiences of her past. In some ways Lucy becomes the epitome of the flawed way we all survive by filtering reality and numbing ourselves. But eventually she became a hero to me in several ways. She learns to harness the vital power of simple kindness transmitted from people around her through simple acts and gestures. In a visit by A quiet but moving reverie by a resilient woman on various timepoints in her life, revealing the distorted lens by which she views life around her and the troubling experiences of her past. In some ways Lucy becomes the epitome of the flawed way we all survive by filtering reality and numbing ourselves. But eventually she became a hero to me in several ways. She learns to harness the vital power of simple kindness transmitted from people around her through simple acts and gestures. In a visit by her estranged mother while sick in the hospital she extends that capacity to the point of forgiving her for her failures of neglect and abuse during her childhood. She also captures my heart by carrying through on an inspiration from her discovery of reading in grade school: “I will write and people will fell less alone!”

We spend most of the book time in the 90s when as a middle-aged Manhattanite Lucy is forced to spend several months in the hospital with a prolonged illness. Her husband is busy with work and caring for their daughters, and so Lucy is mostly alone at first and led to kaleidoscopic introspection. But then she is surprised by a visit from her elderly mother, whom she hasn’t seen in more than a dozen years, a breach precipitated their rejection of her choice for marriage. The five days her mother sits by her bedside, sleeping in a chair, are filled with discussions on neutral topics, gossip about community members they both knew, giving comic nicknames to the hospital staff, etc. Though their talk never touches directly on the traumas that separated them long before the final split and neither display explicit affection physically or verbally, Lucy comes to feel and accept that her mother really does love her.

Lucy herself can only experience the extreme poverty of her girlhood in rural Illinois in little memory snatches. Periodic reminders of the constant hunger or of the brutal cold of their garage apartment; flashes on being locked in a car at 3 or 4 years old while both parents worked; the frequent subjection to suddenly being whacked by her stressed out mother; the stigma and bullying in school over her inferior hygiene and clothes. Even without such extremes, I think we all buffer ourselves from the formative pains from our past. She has some awareness of projecting false memories or glosses on the dark patches. For example, a memory of running away from troubles into the fields can become a rosy vision, as in ironic form here :
Oh corn of my youth, you were my friend!—running and running between the rows; running as only a child, alone, in summer can run, running to that stark tree that stood in the middle of the confield--

As an adult taking writing classes, she gets inspired by a teacher to try to make meaning of her life by finding her voice. Once in discussion with her, a cat startles both them excessively, prompting the teacher to recognize an important thing they share: “How long have you suffered post-traumatic stress?” The teacher also gets her thinking in terms of one’s life being a story the self is writing. In reading some of what Lucy writes for class about her mother, she helps her see the piece as a reflection of imperfect love and that “we all love imperfectly.” She instills some confidence in her with the advice that:
You’ll write your one story many ways. Don’t ever worry about story. You have only one.

This is a short book with a long slow burn extending well after I put it down. I found it a pretty radical mind bender achieved without getting into smug postmodernist tricks. This is my third book by Strout (the others being "Olive Kittridge" and "Abide with Me"), and I’m becoming quite a fan. That said, I would be wary about pushing it on a wide array of friends because of the lack of major plot elements many people expect in a novel. The biggest theme of my interest in novels is in the development of self and of knowledge of how to live and be human. Just as important to that interest as stories that go from childhood to adulthood are tales like this that effectively deconstruct the self backward and spin the yarn into the tapestry going forward (the angle of “the child is the father of the man”).
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Dec 08, 2015 Lori Elliott rated it liked it · review of another edition

Melancholy is how I would best discribe the overall feel of this novel. It was very disjointed. I do think that the style of the writing helped to convey the feelings that Lucy was trying to sort through, however, as a reader it confused me. Unfortunately, this was just ok for me.

58 likes · Like · see review

Feb 03, 2016 Ladyslott rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: play-book-tag, fiction, family-relationships, relationships, favorite, nyc, kindle, marriage, library, mother-daughter-relationship

I love Elizabeth Strout’s style of writing. It is quiet and simple; while reading it appears as if nothing is happening, and yet somehow much is being conveyed. Lucy Barton’s story is sad and happy, simple yet complex. Very little is said, but much is implied.

The book opens with Lucy reflecting back at a time when she was in the hospital after an operation. Her mother, whom she has not seen in a long time, makes the journey to visit her daughter. They sit together talking and yet there are many ...more

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Apr 26, 2023 Booknblues rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, health, family-relationships, literary-fiction, 23-new, library-book, family

Elizabeth Strout is not an author I had been drawn to as the descriptions of her books never rang any bells for me, but then I read Olive Kitteridge and it changed my mind. I really loved it and I loved Olive as off putting as she seemed at times, I found a core of goodness which I admired because she so much reminded me of my mother.

When I picked up My Name Is Lucy Barton, I expected her to be another difficult character but this is not so. Perusing reviews about this book, I kept coming across ...more

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Apr 20, 2016 Margaret rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites, library, contemporary, health, mental-health, awards, booker, womens-prize, literary

Most of this book takes place in a hospital room. When Lucy Barton suffers complications following gall bladder surgery, that leads to a lengthy hospitalization and an extended visit from her estranged mother, who seems to never leave the room or even to sleep. There's good reason Lucy is estranged from her family, namely a miserable childhood lived in poverty and neglect.

Lucy's story is told as she and her mother talk about everyday life, past and present. I think just about everyone could fin ...more

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Dec 15, 2016 Raine rated it really liked it

Shelves: goal-65-books-in-2016-read, acceptance, self-discovery, marriage, mothers-and-daughters

I enjoyed MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON as it was many stories rolled into one book. Lucy is sick and has to spend weeks in the hospital and her estranged mother comes and sits with her. That is just part of the story, as we get to see Lucy's future also after she recovers.

This book wasn't exciting, or it wasn't the type of book that I couldn't put down, but it is just the story of a regular life that I believe many people experience. Not too many people experience the perfect life, and Elizabeth Strou ...more

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