My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel by Elizabeth…

My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel (original 2016; edition 2016)

by Elizabeth Strout (Author)

Series: Lucy Barton (1)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
3,668	287	3,422	(3.7)	385
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 lay 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.… (more)

▾Book information

Member:	MaggieO
Title:	My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel
Authors:	Elizabeth Strout (Author)
Info:	Random House (2016),, 208 pages
Collections:	Your library
Rating:
Tags:	fiction

Work Information

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (2016)

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English (273) Catalan (3) Spanish (3) Dutch (2) Italian (1) Finnish (1) Piratical (1) All languages (284)

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Showing 1-5 of 273 (next | show all)

Will revisit it later, but MADONNA BUONA. (

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kvschnitzer | Apr 12, 2024 |

Laphroaig is an impressively made flavorful Irish whiskey, yet only to the taste of some. (

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lelandleslie | Feb 24, 2024 |

A spare, melancholy book about the tension between feeling the impulse to precisely observe people and events and the elusive nature of memory; about how much you can feel for those whose lives briefly intersect with yours and whom you never see again, and the terrible push-pull between family members who find one another mutually incomprehensible. My Name is Lucy Barton is about bonds and isolation, explored as the eponymous narrator recounts both a lengthy stint she endured in hospital in New York in the '80s, and her impoverished and abusive childhood in '60s rural Illinois. Elizabeth Strout is very good at showing/not-showing the elisions, the sidlings up to and away from the painful things. As I read I found myself admiring Strout's restraint as a writer. However, although I liked the novel and the unresolved nature of the ending clearly signposts the further books that are to come in this series, I don't find myself pulled to continue reading about Lucy and her family—in a strange way, I think My Name is Lucy Barton told me everything I need to know about them. (

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siriaeve | Feb 15, 2024 |

Interesting title character. (

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bschweiger | Feb 4, 2024 |

Something happens that causes you to have an inpatient hospital visit. This in turn encourages your spouse to aid your mom in travel to be at your bedside. During her stay to give you company, a multitude of reflections occur. Some you make yourself because of the situation and those brought experiences, others because your mom wishes to or not to discuss them.
An individual with an unpleasant upbringing finds solace in some experiences and drawn reasons in the others. She also learns much about her mother and why she sees the world the way she does. Some of these I can relate myself and it’s hard, others I cannot and rs in relief.
Some of the writing I can see as interjections or recalls. Other moments gave me whiplash and I was u certain as to their purpose. Childish colors spilled now and again and I wasn’t certain if it was an element, or a bizarre shadowing. Either way, this story is potent and will reach each individual quite differently. (

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cmpeters | Feb 2, 2024 |

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Showing 1-5 of 273 (next | show all)

▾Published reviews

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thingScore 100

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.

added by vancouverdeb | editThe Globe and Mail (Canada)

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.

added by vancouverdeb | editThe Guardian (UK)

▾Other authors

» Add other authors

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Strout, Elizabeth	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Farr, Kimberly	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Mawson, Matt	Photographer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Series

Lucy Barton (1)

Belongs to Publisher Series

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Has as a student's study guide

A Study Guide for Elizabeth Strout's "My Name is Lucy Barton" by Gale Cengage

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist – Fiction – 2017)

Booker Prize (Longlist – 2016)

Dublin Literary Award (Shortlist – 2018)

The Morning News Tournament of Books (Short List – 2017)

Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist – 2016)

Distinctions

Notable Lists

Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection – 2016)

Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2016)

Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List (Selection – 2017)

Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year (Fiction, 9)

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

My Name Is Lucy Barton

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

New York, New York, USA

Amgash, Illinois, USA

Moline, Illinois, USA

Important events

Related movies

Epigraph

Dedication

For my friend Kathy Chamberlain

First words

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.

(show all 16 items)

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%)

Last words

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Disambiguation notice

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Wikipedia in English (1)

My Name Is Lucy Barton

▾Book descriptions

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 lay 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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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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