Written in the first person, a novelty for the author herself as she puts in an interview, this novel is told in clear, direct prose that touches the readers. Everything in the book relies on Lucy’s voice and what a voice she has!

The events in it are of radical nature in that the main character, from having sprout from an extremely poor background in a fictional town called Amgash, ends up in an upper-middle-class situation as an author in NY city. The reader meets her first when she gets very ill after an appendicitis surgery. When Lucy opens her eyes in her hospital room one day, she sees her mother sitting near her bed, the mother she hasn’t seen for years and for whom she had ambivalent feelings. As such, the opening of this novel is one of the best I have ever read and recognized.

The most of the novel, the essence of it, which follows this scene, takes place during the five days while her mother stays with Lucy, and they mostly talk about other people. Their conversations may sound like gossip, but in reality, it is two people connecting, two people who are lonely inside despite who or what happens around them. Lucy and her mother love each other but they have difficulty showing that love and do not know what to do with their feelings. What they don’t actually say makes this story a huge winner.

As a character, outwardly, Lucy is a success with a vocation, husband and two children. Internally, she is lonely and sad, and as an ostracized person and an abused child in her beginnings, she is vulnerable and sensitive to being judged, even if another person’s judging her is only in her mind. These people include her doctor, her family, or anyone else she comes in contact with, and the complex relationship she has with her siblings might be due to this vulnerability and also her guilt of having risen above them.

It is impossible to reflect every wonderful heart-rending aspect, the hurt, the darkness as well as the light in this book in a short review. The readers may have to judge for themselves as this is one the rare works where the characters can really make the story.

seeing what a great art writing can be.

Everything, but more so what is being implied than actually said or narrated.

read everything Elizabeth Strout has written. As I already have the paperback book of Olive Kitteridge, that will be a good place to start.

Lucy's pain.

Elizabeth Strout is a Pulitzer winner for Olive Kitteridge. Her other books are Amy and Isabelle, The Burgess Boys, Winter, Abide with Me, and Anything is Possible.

I loved it and a writer, if she or he reads it carefully, can learn a lot from the story about characterization and construction. Plus, this is a short book of 208 pages only.

if you like constant action with no regard to characterization or introspection, this book is not for you.

Elizabeth Strout talks about this book and her writing process in the following video, which lasts about an hour. You may find it informative and interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwpygmbxfzQ

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Created Apr 08, 2018 at 1:53pm • Submit your own review...