I have read all the novels Elizabeth Strout has written. I've read them all because the first one I read, Olive Kitteridge, is a special book. If you've watched the tv series and not read the book, I suggest you take it out of your local library. It is very very good.
Lucy By The Sea is Strout's fourth book about Lucy Barton. I liked the first one, My Name is Lucy Barton. This one, I write at the risk of being pilloried by Strout devotees, is not a very good book. I've a number of reasons.
The first is, well, enough already with Lucy. We know about her mother, her marriages, her upbringing, her siblings--there is very little that is new here. This novel takes place during the pandemic. William, an ex husband and father of her two daughters, scoops Lucy up out of New York and drives her to Maine. Lucy is not a COVID denier, but she is not as concerned--at least initially-as William is about the dangers of the virus. Nevertheless she travels with him to Maine and they live in a home near the coast. They take separate bedrooms and try, like many of us did, to deal with the hours after the world closed up. Some of her observations are akin to those I, and I imagine most readers had during the pandemic. I'll not divulge plot details--such as they are. Four books about Lucy--there's not enough more to discuss.
The book is also not engagingly written. Lucy Barton, the character, is supposedly a successful author who has been on television discussing her books, and been on book tours. She is also the narrator of this novel. A popular author should be able to write better. Lucy often speaks like a child--like perhaps a senior who has been addled by some illness or severe emotional turbulence. I typically like books with short sections, but here there are just too many of them. It is as if the book is written in three or four paragraph bites. Sometimes there is just a space between sections, sometimes some marker indicating more of a content break. If Lucy Barton wrote for a living like Lucy Barton narrates the novel, I don't think she would have published many novels.
I will not, as mentioned previously, divulge much about the story line. However, I don't find the issues she and William face and how they evolve, especially profound. Their relationship with the daughters; William's relationship with an ex wife; Lucy's dreaming about a dead husband--well okay, but nothing especially novel about this novel's plot line.
Finally, there are characters in this book from other Strout books--not just the Lucy books. Olive Kitteridge shows up, one of the Burgess boys from the novel The Burgess Boys. Isabelle from Amy and Isabelle. Olive has such a small role--just referenced by another character--that it is not essential to remember the details of her life. But the Burgess boy has a major part and there are allusions to his siblings and the story in that other novel. I only vaguely remember the other book and understanding Burgess in this book requires--for full appreciation--remembering Burgess from the other book. I feel similarly about Isabelle. She does not have as big a part as Burgess. But there is a section when Isabelle recalls an incident that is not insignificant to this novel, but you would have to remember the other book to get it. And I barely do. If you haven't read the others I am not sure the reference to what Isabelle recalls would have much significance.
As I look through the Amazon reviews of the book, my take on the novel is in the minority. Many like the book a lot. So, you may enjoy the novel. i didn't. Not the kind of book I carried along so that if I had a spare moment I could get lost in the story. It was a slog. And only 288 pages. My recommendation to the author is to find another character to write about and jettison the Barton writing style.
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