A Goodreads user asked:

Is the reader supposed to know what in particular has kept lucy away? She makes allusions but I'm not quite sure what conclusion reader should draw

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9 years ago
16 answers

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Melanie M Merritt Why do so many of you think that Lucy's dad was the one who walked around the house masturbating? The book clearly says (from the point of view of someone in another workshop) that it a the father of someone named Janie Templeton.

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Ruth

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

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Bryce

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meandermind I didn't get the fellatio thing but when I read Rhondas comment I was like "oooooh! that makes sense!" But then I think some more, and why is the tension not really there when she meets the dad? Shouldn't she be more angry? When reading it, all I got was the PTSD and the masturbation. As to answer your question, in my reading of it I would say it was a class thing, she wanted so badly to get away from the poverty and the mentally ill parent(s).

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Rhonda Cutler The father forces Lucy to fellate him. That is why Lucy refers to his hand on the back of her head several times.

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Lara

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[There's no way to know for sure, unless it is revealed in Anything is Possible, as someone noted. I haven't read that one yet. I found the lack of a full explanation of Lucy's childhood stressful, and it's part of why I didn't rate the book as highly as I did Strout's others. Then again, if her goal was to make us feel uneasy and unsettled, she definitely succeeded. Ambiguous, possibly sexual, abuse is scary, because it's hard not to imagine the worst when we're not given all the details.

Clearly Lucy experienced horrible neglect, since she was locked in a truck more than once when she was younger than 5. We also know that her family of 5 lived in a garage without hot water, which would make for a pretty austere childhood even in the healthiest of families. But then there are the clear hints pointing to some kind of sexual abuse. Snakes are commonly used as sexual metaphors, and Lucy is terrified of them. Her father's hand on the back of her head is deliberately described with ambiguous language, so I found it hard not to have my mind go to the worst case scenario. And then of course there's the story of the father in Maine who had a nervous breakdown, after which Lucy immediately tells us that she had to write down what happened to her so she could share it with her therapist.

Because Lucy Barton is a writer, I'm tempted to say this book might be about Strout's struggles with her own autobiographical material. It doesn't really matter to me what is "true" in the story (and it isn't really my business anyway), but it is interesting to note that the father who had the nervous breakdown lived in Maine, where Strout grew up. That story of the father compulsively masturbating, which Lucy only happens to overhear, is the only specific information about sexual abuse that we get. In a book full of innuendo and metaphor, it's quite startling. It's almost like Lucy is using that story as a kind of screen memory, as the only way she can actually talk about her own childhood of abuse. (hide spoiler)]

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Russell Brown Strout's new book, Anything Is Possible, is a powerful linked short story sequence. In a number of these stories Lucy's backstory and that of her family is revealed.

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Jillybb I totally missed the sexual abuse. I thought the father was just a jerk.

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Cathi The general abuse, needing to get away from the small town where so much caused her pain for sure. Didn't get the fellatio thing either and don't think I agree with that interpretation. The family had a real problem with her husband William, because his dad was a German prisoner of war, and her dad could not have anything to do with her given his war experiences. That is what I remember.

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