From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)

Elizabeth Strout

Start date: July 15, 2016

Finish date: August 1, 2016

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Barb

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 428 topics — 16,892 comments total

Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
By Lynn · 1 post · 41 views

last updated Jun 20, 2025 08:37AM

Circe - discussion with spoilers
By Jane · 17 posts · 23 views

last updated Sep 06, 2025 04:48PM

showing 9 of 9 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Jul 01, 2016 Dree rated it liked it

Shelves: the-northeast, the-midwest, 2016-reads

In this quick read, Lucy Barton tells the story of her life. Kind of. She hints at the depth of abuse and poverty she experienced as a child--hunger, cold, neglect, and perhaps more. Bullying at school--and she strongly remembers the one teacher who would not tolerate it.

And she got away. And had a rather normal life, with kids, marriage, divorce, plenty of money, a successful career.

And then the book ends. It was all just a little too vague for me--I was expecting some kind of big reveal or sh ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Aug 31, 2017 Lauren rated it liked it

Subtle, opaque, with moments of great beauty and insight. Stout's books are all about the characters, not plot. I loved "Olive Kitteridge" and thought I had a high tolerance for character-driven books, but after reading "Lucy Barton" I'm thinking perhaps one can have too much of a good thing. I found myself wanting a bit more plot here, a story to grab onto. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 22, 2015 Tensy (bookdoyen) rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

My review is probably closer to a 3.5 because I kept vacillating after I finished the novel. I am a fan of Strout's writing, especially her novel Olive Kitteridge. This brief novel felt more like a long prose poem, with its short chapters and sentences. In the end, I felt like I knew a little bit about the characters and wanted to learn more, which is a good reflection on the writing, but on the other hand I felt that this could have been developed within a longer work. What resonates in her wri ...more

Like · see review

May 19, 2016 Jane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recentfiction, read-this-book-again

Spoilers:

I needed to read Lucy Barton again after reading the book of linked stories called Anything is Possible by the same author, about many of the characters that Lucy and her mother talk about as Lucy lies in her hospital bed.

I loved it just as much this time. There is a tentativeness about the narrator's voice that Strout captures perfectly. As though Lucy's voice is exactly the voice of a child who has been hungry and poor and abused and locked in a truck when her parents needed to leave Spoilers:

I needed to read Lucy Barton again after reading the book of linked stories called Anything is Possible by the same author, about many of the characters that Lucy and her mother talk about as Lucy lies in her hospital bed.

I loved it just as much this time. There is a tentativeness about the narrator's voice that Strout captures perfectly. As though Lucy's voice is exactly the voice of a child who has been hungry and poor and abused and locked in a truck when her parents needed to leave her in order to go to work.

Here are some passages that grabbed me: Molla "told me she hated her mother terrifically, and told me the whole story again as though she had not told it to me before, how much she hated her mother, and when she had had her babies she had to see a psychiatrist because she was saddened by everything her mother had not given her....recording this now, I think of something Sarah Payne had said at the writing class in Arizona. "You will have only one story," she had said. "You'll write your one story many ways. Don't ever worry about story. You'll have only one."

"I think of Jeremy telling me I had to be ruthless to be a writer. And I think how I did not go to visit my brother and sister and my parents because I was always working on a story and there was never enough time...later I knew that if I stayed in my marriage I would not write another book, not the kind I wanted to, and there is that as well. But really, the ruthless-ness, I think, comes in grabbing onto myself, in saying: This is me, and I will not go where I can't bear to go--to Amgash, Illinois--and I will not stay in a marriage when I don't want to, and I will grab myself and hurl onward through life, blind as a bat, but on I go! This is the ruthlessness, I think. My mother told me in the hospital that day that I was not like my brother and sister: "Look at your life right now. You just went ahead and...did it." Perhaps she meant that I was already ruthless. Perhaps she meant that, but I don't know what my mother meant.

Chrissie said, not long ago, about the husband I have now: 'I love him, Mom, but hope he dies in his sleep and then my stepmom can die too, and you and Dad will get back together...I thought, I did this to my child. Do I understand that hurt my children feel? I think I do, though they might claim otherwise. But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can't even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: This is mind, this is mine, this is mine.

I couldn't stop reading this book. It's deceptively simple and beautifully written. About mothers and children. About childhood and the heartbreak that childhood can be. Lucy's childhood is particularly heartbreaking. But it speaks to the universal element of heartbreak in childhood. And also to forgiveness. I loved this book.

One beautiful piece of the book is the fact that it is about writing and memory. Lucy, who narrates the story, is never sure is she is accurately recalling the stories she remembers of her childhood, or the conversations she's had with her mother. Remembering talking about Kathy Nicely whose husband won't take her back: "He'll be sorry. I tell you he will." And my mother said, "I suspect she's the one who's sorry." But maybe that wasn't what my mother said. This is a recurring refrain as a chapter ends. May 19 2016 ...more

Like · see review