While writing about the brief reunion of a mother and daughter, Elizabeth Strout also writes about the human condition.
How hurtful it is to feel judged, humiliated, desperate or to suffer indignities at the hands of others.
How we all have an inherent need for respect and belonging. Lucy Barton voices the thoughts that many of us share. Lucy wants this for herself, and, she wants it for her daughters. She cannot remember her mother ever giving her a kiss.Įvery mother of a daughter knows that they long for that time when they can get past all the parental angst and guilt. She seems incapable of showing affection – though the reader wonders if it is there, hidden beneath her brusque exterior. Her mother has never expressed her feelings toward Lucy and that has not changed. Yet she seems delighted and grateful for her presence. As more and more unsettling revelations come to light, the reader wonders how Lucy can stand to have her mother in the same room. She remembers being cold and being left to fend for herself. She doesn’t have any knowledge of popular culture, partly due to the fact that she didn’t have a television growing up. She reflects on how she and her siblings ‘did without’ and how they were ostracized by their schoolmates. Shown no affection, emotionally traumatized and without many of the physical comforts, even basic necessities, that so many of us enjoy. When her estranged mother makes the long journey from rural Illinois to New York City to visit her, she reconnects with her and relives many childhood memories – none of them pleasant. Her enforced idleness provides her with ample time to reflect on her life and her marriage, and she tries to understand herself and those who have touched her life. She says that in the third grade she read a book that made her want to write a book. When reading books she feels less ‘alone’ so she wants to write so that other people will feel less alone also. During her hospital stay of almost nine weeks she lies in her bed looking out the window at the Chrysler Building against the night sky. She longs to return home to resume her life. A happily married mother of two young girls, Lucy feels as though being in hospital has made her isolated and apart – a feeling she is very familiar with. We meet Lucy Barton when she is hospitalized for an undisclosed illness, an infection of some sort. Like a personal friend sharing her intimate, innermost thoughts. I felt the author was speaking directly to me. I SO enjoyed my first time reading Elizabeth Strout! Written in a very different style from what I usually read, it was almost a stream of consciousness.
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