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Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters.… (more)
I think I understand what this book was trying to do, with its non-linear, almost stream of consciousness narrative, but it just didn’t work. The narrator is Lucy Barton, a wife and mother living in New York City who falls ill and is hospitalized. The story is told from the distant future, and skips around to different times and places. I think the author was trying to make a statement about mothers and daughters (most of the book is focused on Lucy’s mother visiting her for the first time ever when she is in the hospital), but what was she trying to say? I’m not sure. The fractured narrative left that up to the reader (or maybe I just didn’t get it), and ultimately seemed unfinished and unsatisfying. ( )
I really liked this book, but I'm not sure I can put my finger on exactly why. It was simple, authentic, not showy, and left me wanting to slow down my life to take in more of my surroundings. But I feel like there's a deeper reason why this landed so well with me and I can't figure it out. It read like a memoir without all the details and I found myself with more questions than answers, but also somehow not mad about it? ( )
An interesting insight into a mother and daughter's complicated relationship and what at first appears as a simple enough story turns out to have quite a lot going on that I feel would be best read and discussed as a bookclub read to get the best out of it.
It's a short book and while I liked it and took my time to digest it's simple prose and complex characters, I didn't feel any emotion or connection with the story or the characters which was disappointing for me. I kept feeling that I needed to read this with a view to discussing it in a group and instead of reading it for its enjoyment and story I was constantly trying to fill in the blanks in the plot as this is the type of novel where little is said but a lot is implied and therefore I didn't feel I connected with this book. I did read the discussion questions online Just to satisfy my curiosity.
Having said that, if it came up for reading in my book group I would happily revisit it as feel it would making an interesting discussion book. An interesting read but not one for my favourite shelf. ( )
this review is for the audiobook edition, narrated by kimberly farr.
farr has a good voice, and it worked well for this story, but i didn't feel as connected to it compared to when i read the paper edition. i wanted a refresher before going into strout's followup novel, so it was good in that regard to listen to the audiobook. reading the paper version created more of a personal experience for me, and i felt a bit distanced from the audio. ( )
I was in Lucy Barton’s head from the very first page.
It’s rare when this happens – when the words of a book hypnotize you. The experience doesn’t feel like reading at all. It’s like falling into someone else’s consciousness...Strout’s skill in channelling Lucy’s voice is breathtaking, especially considering it’s the first time the bestselling author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys has written a novel in the first person....This ability to love life, to notice small kindnesses, to remember the light in the sky and across the fields rather than the horrors of her childhood home, is Lucy’s salvation.
It is what we allow ourselves to see that helps us survive.
My Name Is Lucy Barton confirms Strout as a powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships, weaving family tapestries with compassion, wisdom and insight. If she hadn’t already won the Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge, this new novel would surely be a contender.
There was a time, and it was many years ago now, when I had to stay in a hospital for almost nine weeks.
Quotations
Whatever we call it, I think it's the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down. (52%)
Sarah Payne, the day she told us to go to the page without judgement, reminded us that we never knew, and never would know, what it would be like to understand another person fully.
"You will have only one story," she had said. "You'll write your story many ways. Don't ever worry about story. You have only one." (77%)
I feel that people may not understand that my mother could never say the words I love you. I feel that people may not understand: It was all right.
Telling a lie and wasting food were always things to be punished for.
There are elements that determine paths taken, and we can seldom find them or point to them accurately, but I have sometimes thought how I would stay late at school, where it was warm, just to be warm.
I think he was too shy at first to hug me, so I hugged him, and imagined the warmth of his hand against the back of my head.
At times these days I think of the way the sun would set on the farmland around our small house in the autumn. A view of the horizon, the whole entire circle of it, if you turned, the sun setting behind you, the sky in front becoming pink and soft, then slightly blue again, as though it could not stop going on in its beauty, then the land closest to the setting sun would get dark, almost black against the orange line of horizon, but if you turn around, the land is still available to the eye with such softness, the few trees, the quiet fields of cover crops already turned, and the sky lingering, lingering, then finally dark. As though the soul can be quiet for those moments.
One can be ready to give up the children one always wanted, one can be ready to withstand remarks about one's past or one's clothes, but then -- a tiny remark and the soul deflates and says: "Oh." (16%)
Lonely was the first flavor I tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me. (24%)
Once in a while I see a child crying with the deepest of desperation and I think it is one of the truest sounds a child can make. (34%)
There is this constant judgement in this world: How are we going to make sure we do not feel inferior to another? (44%)
This is a story about a mother who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly. (58%)
I kept thinking how the five of us had had a really unhealthy family, but I saw then too how our roots were twisted so tenaciously around another's hearts. (89%)
... I will grab myself and hurl onward through life, blind as a bat, but on I go! This is the ruthlessness, I think. (93%)
But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chest, how it lasts our whole lifetime,with longing solarge you can't even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart. This is mine, this is mine, this is mine. (98%)
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters.
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Book description
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.
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I think I understand what this book was trying to do, with its non-linear, almost stream of consciousness narrative, but it just didn’t work. The narrator is Lucy Barton, a wife and mother living in New York City who falls ill and is hospitalized. The story is told from the distant future, and skips around to different times and places. I think the author was trying to make a statement about mothers and daughters (most of the book is focused on Lucy’s mother visiting her for the first time ever when she is in the hospital), but what was she trying to say? I’m not sure. The fractured narrative left that up to the reader (or maybe I just didn’t get it), and ultimately seemed unfinished and unsatisfying. (