Advertisement

Art & Books Books

>>> My name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout (Random House), 208 pages, $34 cloth. Rating: NNNN


Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge) mines two popular American themes in My Name Is Lucy Barton – the mother-daughter bond and poverty’s brutal impact – but there’s never been anything like her take on them.

Lucy, a writer living in New York City, goes back to the time she was in hospital in the 1980s with a serious infection and got a surprise visit from her estranged mother. When her mother – whom she hasn’t seen in nearly a decade – arrives for that five-day visit, Lucy, is flooded by memories of her grim childhood and tries to reconnect.

Lucy grew up on a farm in Illinois, where she lived with her family in a makeshift garage, was shunned at school and experienced no real tenderness from her parents, who haven’t spoken to her since she married a man of German extraction.

Yet here is her mother, sitting at the end of the bed, catnapping (never really sleeping), gossiping about people from the old town and calling Lucy by her pet name, Wizzle. She does, somehow, care.

And Lucy is grateful, even as she recalls the cruelty she and her brother experienced at the hands of their mother and father.

In very plain language, wholly from her heart, Lucy’s recollections – of being locked in a truck for long periods of time, of her father’s abuse of her gay brother – give a clear picture of the price of poverty. She’s hidden her class background from just about everybody in New York and, though her mother won’t talk about anything hard in their relationship, it’s almost as if by showing up she’s put Lucy back in touch with who she is.

Along the way, Lucy remembers those who snubbed her and those who encouraged her. Her journey as writer is another theme.

But the key here is the mysterious primal bond between mother and daughter that trumps unbearable hardship.

Strout talks about her novel at the Toronto Reference Library on Sunday (January 24). See Readings.

susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted