My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout - Review

As I mentioned in my review of Oh William!, I hadn't read the first book about Lucy Barton, so I bought it for a few quid on eBay. It's a short little book so I read it one day in July. I didn't like it as much as I like Oh William, actually. I think that's because I liked William as a character and how insufferable he was - just the type of person you can like to dislike in a book. 

In this book Lucy is in her early thirties and has to spend several weeks in hospital. She has a routine operation but then gets an infection and ends up staying longer. Her girls are very little and rarely visit - they are looked after by the woman who ends up being William's second wife, who he was having an affair with. William also rarely visits, which Lucy explains away by saying he is very busy with work. Instead, he phones her mother, who is in Illinois and with whom Lucy has not had contact since she was a teenager and went to college. That's not strictly true - she visited a few times, including with William, but her family was abusive as Lucy was growing up and she doesn't miss her family at all. 

But Lucy's mother turns up at the hospital and stays for five days, not sleeping but catnapping in the chair next to Lucy's bed. She mentions something about never sleeping properly as a child because she 'wasn't safe' - something that Lucy can also say about her own childhood. Lucy's mothe begins to talk about neighbours and family members, spreading the gossip with Lucy in a way that does bond the two women together. 

But Lucy remembers the times she was locked into her father's truck and the time a snake was in there with her, which left her with a lifelong phobia. She also remembers one time when her brother did something and their father humiliated him in public. There's actually quite a lot about Lucy's brother - who is never named - in this book, which I'd really like more of.

Like Oh William this has a really irreverent style which almost makes the reader miss the depth of the actual words being written. I liked it and am giving it four out of five. 

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout - Review

This was the June book for my book club and I was intriqued by it, even though I haven't read the first book, My Name is Lucy Barton. I think that might have been a book club choice too, but from a time I couldn't make, so I didn't read it. I liked this one though so I ordered My Name Is... so I can read that too.

So this is a sequel to that book, narrated by Lucy Barton whose second husband David has just died. She and her first husband, a scientist called William, are on friendly terms, and this book is about him. He is a little older than her and married to his third wife. Lucy and William have two children, Becka and Chrissy, who are both in their mid 30s and are married. Chrissy has had a miscarriage. Lucy is close to her daughters. William also has a small child, Bridget, aged ten, to his third wife. 

The book has an odd way of narrating stuff - it flips backwards and forwards in time and also from person to person. Lucy tells us a little about her abusive childhood, but I believe the first book delves into this much more deeply. She tells us more about her somewhat unhappy marriage to William, including his affairs and what led to her leaving and him then marrying his second wife, Joanna. It's told in an odd but compelling way, which kept me reading. 

Right at the beginning Lucy tells us that two things happened to William about a year after Lucy lost David, but it's almost halfway through the book before she tells us what these things are. She ends up on a road trip with William on which he is actually insufferable. I didn't like him at all, but that made him interesting to read about - especially as it's clear that Lucy still does feel some kind of way about him.

I'm giving this four out of five because I liked it a lot. I'll try to read the first one soon!