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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.
By Karin · 4 posts · 18 views

last updated Aug 07, 2017 12:41PM

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What Members Thought

Feb 19, 2022 Theresa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: new-york, contemporary-general-fiction

Lucy is hospitalized in NYC for an extended period after an appendectomy. Her illness is mysterious but also concerning, evidenced by a low grade fever and inability to keep food down. She has a view from her hospital bed of the glorious Chrysler Building: The light from the Chrysler Building shone like the beacon it was, of the largest and best hopes for mankind and its aspirations and desire for beauty. It's the mid-1980s, before cellphones, email, laptop computers or electronic devices, addin Lucy is hospitalized in NYC for an extended period after an appendectomy. Her illness is mysterious but also concerning, evidenced by a low grade fever and inability to keep food down. She has a view from her hospital bed of the glorious Chrysler Building: The light from the Chrysler Building shone like the beacon it was, of the largest and best hopes for mankind and its aspirations and desire for beauty. It's the mid-1980s, before cellphones, email, laptop computers or electronic devices, adding a deep loneliness to Lucy's time in hospital. In fact loneliness is an ever present theme here: Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me. Luicy is a writer and that loneliness is that of the writer pursuing her craft, of a woman dealing with illness, of a woman in the middle of family and marriage. There is also the loneliness of death witnessed by Lucy.

But that is only part of the story. It's also the story of mothers and daughters. Lucy's mother comes to stay with her daughter at the hospital for 5 days. It is during this time that we learn most about Lucy herself and her background, her impoverished childhood and growth to adulthood, even her marriage. Her mother tells stories of people from her small home town, life lessons which balance happy and sad, prosperity and tragedy, and in the course of the telling, her mother shows Lucy just how our roots were twisted so tenaciously around one another’s hearts. It is about love, which is ugly and beautiful, which is expressed in ways that are often invisible to the recipient, even cruel, and rarely expressed in words.

I loved this, how sparing it is with words, yet still having a deep impact and depicting a complex emotional landscape. Lucy, her mother, her doctor were all so real to me. I loved the episodic style and how NYC was depicted so well in a few scenes. I recognized much - I too had an 'Aunt Seal' whose real name was Celia, and my mother in the last couple years of her life would tell me stories of neighbors and relatives that were her way of providing life lessons she knew she would not live to teach me later (my mother died when I was 23 after several years of illness). It was also one of the ways she showed her love - my family never tossed those words around but demonstrated by actions pretty much every day. This book is about love, about mothers and daughters, about family, about loneliness.

Yet, I could not bring myself to give it more than 4 stars. Despite the repeated messaging that as a writer, Lucy ruthlessly needed to tell her one story and that this was that story, I felt there was a hesitation, a veil, a holding back, a stopping just before truly telling that story. It imparted a sense of melancholy and - yes- loneliness to the writing It has left me thinking that perhaps a writer does have one story to tell but that story is never ruthlessly the full story. ...more

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Jul 27, 2016 Nicole D. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, family, new-york, 2016, 2016-favorite, man-booker-longlist

https://thereadersroom.org/2016/08/09...

This is a short, lovely little book that somehow manages to pack a wallop. There was a point in this book where I just burst into tears, and I realized at that moment how deftly I was brought to that point. You be you, Lucy B. ...more

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Mar 20, 2017 debbicat *made of stardust* rated it really liked it

Shelves: audible, 2017-reads

Review to follow. Solid 4 stars. Maybe 5. Very well done and endearing. I picked it up over the weekend bc I got the sequel from NetGalley so I felt I needed to know the characters b4 reading. I really had no idea I'd like this SO much. What a story teller! Highly recommended. ...more

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Dec 16, 2016 Olivermagnus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022, fiction, contemporary, usa, zfeb-2022

Lucy lies in a hospital bed fighting a lingering post-surgery infection. When she wakes and finds her mother sitting beside her bed, Lucy is surprised and happy. Having had little contact with her mother for many years, Lucy finds that her mother’s words and attention are things she now craves. Their conversations over the five-day visit stir memories from Lucy’s childhood and leave her contemplating her own life.

The novel is told from Lucy’s perspective and jumps around in time. Almost immediat ...more

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Mar 31, 2017 Regina Lindsey rated it liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, family-relationships, women-writers, familial-relationships, family, mother-daughter-relationships, female-author, mothers-and-daughters, family-issues, complex-woman

This is a reflection of Lucy Barton's life. The vast majority of the novella occurs while Lucy is undergoing a lengthy hospital recovery after a surgery. Her husband, William, has asked Lucy's mother, whom Lucy hasn't seen in years, to stay with Lucy. She does. The two visit, gossip, catch up on family, etc. all of which allows lugubrious life to unfold for the reader. If Lucy expected their reunion to end in rapprochement she was mistaken. Her mother seems wholly incapable of a nurturing relati ...more

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May 17, 2016 Ellen rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, family-relationships

While recovering in the hospital from a routine operation that turned into an extended infection, Lucy Barton is lonely, missing her husband and two young daughters. Lucy's mother, who she has not seen in several years, suddenly appears at Lucy's bedside and the two spend the days and nights talking but their conversations are always about other people and not their underlying family issues. Lucy's family was desperately poor and Lucy wanted to leave that life behind so she studied hard, made go ...more

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Jul 19, 2017 Barbara M rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: authors, poverty, families

Lucy Barton is telling this story of a time in her life when she was married, had two little girls, and was spending weeks in a hospital with a constant high temperature of unknown origin. She misses her children and her husband (who hates hospitals and avoids visiting).

This story is told from Lucy's future as an author, looking back to that earlier time. The memory of that time looms large in her life because her mother came to stay with her during the last part of that ordeal. She had not see ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Linda C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

Mary Barton develops an infection after surgery and has to spend 9 weeks in the hospital. The story is mostly reminiscences of that time, particularly around her estranged mother's visit. The chapters are vignettes of her early life, her split from her family, her family situation at the time of her hospitalization and events since then. Some sections reveal the travesty of her childhood and how she has dealt with it. Despite the way she has come to terms with her life, I felt a deep sense of al ...more

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