My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout: A review

Elizabeth Strout once again explores the mother/daughter relationship in My Name is Lucy Barton. As a daughter of a mother and a mother of daughters, I find the subject irresistible, and I can't really think of any writer who does it better than Strout.

The eponymous title character has plenty of time to meditate on the intricacies and complications of such relationships as she lies in a hospital bed for nine long weeks. She had entered the hospital for an appendectomy in which everything proceeded routinely, except that then she was struck down by a bacterial infection which threatened her life.

At the time of her illness, Lucy Barton was married to a man with a demanding job and was the mother of two small daughters. She was a budding writer. When her hospital stay stretched into weeks, her husband was not able to spend much time with her and she didn't really have any friends to take up the slack. And, of course, hospital regulations for the most part kept her daughters away. It was a very lonely time for her.

Lucy's husband tried to mend the situation by calling her mother, from whom she had been estranged for many years, and asking her to come to New York and be with her sick daughter. He paid for her airplane ticket from Illinois. She had never been on a plane, but she came and sat by her daughter's bedside for several days, refusing the cot offered by the staff and catnapping on her chair. And she talked to Lucy.

She talked about people back in her hometown of Amgash, Illinois. She talked about people from Lucy's childhood. It was a gentle gossip which seemed to help reconnect the two long-estranged people. But it was all surface stuff - idle chit-chat. She never went any deeper to the tensions that existed in their troubled family, the poverty and humiliation that were so much a part of the Barton family's life when Lucy was growing up, or to the reasons that Lucy had sought to escape and fulfill her desire to be a writer.

And yet, Lucy loved the sound of her mother's voice and it was a comfort to her during her time of need. As her mind wandered off into tangents from the sound of that voice, we are privy to her thoughts and we learn about traumatic events of childhood and what has made Lucy the person that she is. We learn, too, about her present-day relationships with her own daughters and with her husband, relationships that her mother, strangely, never asks about.

Much of Lucy's reminiscences of her childhood are painfully sad, full of grinding poverty and occasional abuse. It is the portrait of a joyless, dysfunctional family. We learn that in her relationships with her own daughters, Lucy tries to overcompensate, to ensure that she is ever attentive to all their needs. It's a familiar theme of a parent trying to avoid the mistakes of one's own upbringing and making new mistakes, which her children will someday try to avoid.

Even when discussing difficult memories from the past, there always seems to be a tenderness and gentleness in the telling of the story. It is part of the genius of Elizabeth Strout's writing, I think, to convey a certain empathy and understanding for her characters' actions, even when those characters are not necessarily likable people. I found this to be true in her wonderful Olive Kitteridge and it is a quality that is present here once again. The perceptions of the human condition which she conveys to us are both meaningful and wise and they give us hope that our species may, in fact, have some redeeming qualities.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

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