My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout was available as an ebook download and my Libby holds are slow to come in (okay, this is a lie, I DNFed two relatively long books that DID come in and so it's sort of my own fault that I didn't manage my account well), so I downloaded it on the brief remembrance that someone in the blogosphere once mentioned it and it was possibly favorably mentioned. It's all fuzzy.
Lucy is in the hospital after struggling with complications after what should have been a routine operation. Her mother unexpectedly comes to visit her and she and her mother reminisce about their lives in Amgash, Illinois, before Lucy took off for the big city. Their relationship is fraught, with Lucy dealing with years of separation from her parents, a childhood of neglect, a father suffering from PTSD, and poverty.
You guys. This cut just too close to home for me.
We lived with cornfields and fields of soybeans spreading to the horizon; and yet beyond the horizon was the Pedersons' pig farm. In the middle of the cornfields stood one tree, and its starkness was striking. For many years I thought that tree was my friend; it was my friend. (location 187)
Substitute Alles's cow farm for the pig farm and you have an exact description of the loneliness and isolation of where I grew up. (There is a reason "must have sidewalks" was a requirement for where we bought our house.)
And then!
Then I understood I would never marry him. It's funny how one thing can make you realize something like that. 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. (location 323)
I dated a guy in high school and college who I thought for sure I would marry. He sometimes made nasty comments about the way my mom looked or what he would expect from me if we were married and I ignored it all. Until we had a fight about the post office raising the price of postage stamps. It was all over at that exact moment.
And the last thing?
Why didn't I go back there to visit her? To visit my father, and my brother and sister? To see the nieces and nephews I had never seen? I think to say it simply - it was easier not to go. My husband would not come with me, and I didn't blame him. And - I know the defensiveness in this sentence - my parents and my sister and my brother never wrote me, or called me, and when I called them it was hard; I felt I heard in their voices anger, a habitual resentment, as though they were silently saying You are not one of us, as though I had betrayed them by leaving them. (location 1361)
All of this. All of it. No one calls me or texts me. They don't visit. They expect me to go to them. But my husband can't eat there. I can't breathe there. It is hard. My sister is fostering a child and she wants to adopt him and I haven't met him. But going there is hard.
This book, you guys. It's as if Strout looked into my heart and saw me and wrote out the things I think and feel, but never say. I never want to read this book or think about it ever again. I will definitely not be reading anything else in this series.
4.5/5 stars
Nicole and I have both read this book (her recommendation is what compelled me to read it). It was one of my favourite books all year, but it was also so, so hard to read. Tragic on so many levels.
ReplyDeleteI am very, very sorry you can relate so closely to the experiences portrayed in this book.
I read the second book in the series and it felt like too much weight to consume and I'm not sure if I'll read any more. The way Strout writes about many forms of trauma just feel so real and raw and -because they're not overly graphic - that seems to make them even more devastating.
It was good. Too good, as a matter of fact. I reserve five stars for books I will widely recommend to people and the reason this is only 4.5 stars instead of 5 is because I will never recommend this book to anyone. I just thought it hit too hard for me personally to want anyone else to go through it!
DeleteI couldn't remember how I felt about this book so had to look it up. Turns out I only gave it 3 stars. But I can see that I read it in the final weeks of my pregnancy with Paul - which was really awful/hard/scary due to getting a blood clot at 34 weeks. So I probably wasn't in the frame of mind to read a book like this and appreciate it. But that line at the end about the strained relationships with family is really hitting home for me. I have some challenging relationships in my family of origin and I am very much the "other" in my family with my urban lifestyle, moderate/liberal-leaning political beliefs, interests, etc. Gah, family is hard. And I grew up in a similar area of desolation, but in ND. My parents did everything they could to give me a happy childhood but I was so happy to leave home and at one point I begged my parents to send me to a boarding school for high school!
ReplyDeleteI think you should check out "Oh William!" by her. That's one of her newer novels and it was so good, IMO.
Oh, my parents tried, I know they did. But there's only so much they could do and I worked really hard to get out of that cornfield and go somewhere else, so just like you, I was so happy to leave home. I rarely go back and I don't see that changing any time soon.
DeleteHmmm...I'm nervous about dipping back into the Strout well. I'll add it to my "soft TBR" list.
This is one that's on the list of books that people keep telling me to read and for some reason I don't want to...your review covers the "for some reason I don't want to" part.
ReplyDeleteIt IS good, but it's not a happy story and I'm not sure I could recommend it to anyone.
DeleteI haven't read this book, but it sounds incredible. I mean, for the writing to touch you that much, it must be good. I can see how it hits a little too close to home though. Does it help a little to realize that other people have similar experiences? I mean I know this is a work of fiction, but the author got all this from somewhere. Anyway... thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it is incredible. I don't want to take that away from Strout. But having things that resonate so clearly with me that I don't like to think about or acknowledge just laid bare like that was very very challenging. I guess it does help to know other people have similar experiences as I did, but it's even more depressing to think about how widespread neglectful/abusive parents, isolation, and complicated family dynamics are/were. There's probably some little girl living in a cornfield right now and I just want to protect her.
DeleteWhew! Definitely too close to home, which is fascinating to think about unless it's you who are going through it, I'm sure. (Does that make sense outside my head?)
ReplyDeleteYears ago I was working a bad office job and someone told me I had to watch Office Space "because it's so funny," and I tried but couldn't even get through it. I was like, "Funny? I am living this. It is depressing as all hell. Nothing about this is funny."
Yes! I felt the same way about Office Space. It's NOT funny - it's too real!
DeleteWOW. I have had similar experiences, where a book hits too close to home, and though well written, I can't stand it. I may have been the person to suggest this book, as I have recently read her latest book (well, I listened to it), 'Lucy by the Sea', which is less fraught with childhood trauma (as is Oh, William!) though both still have touches of it. I love her writing.
ReplyDeleteYes, I definitely think her writing is super interesting and well-done. I just think maybe this Amgash series isn't for me if it's going to strike a nerve like this. Maybe I'll dip back in to Strout after I recover.
DeleteOh Engie! Engie, that was me. I was the one who mentioned this book, I'm sure, because I recently reread it along with the whole series. I have always loved Strout but I can see how triggering this would be for you. I am going to say that I don't recommend you read any more of her books, not just in this series. Particularly Anything Is Possible. It's very bleak and tells the story of all the people in her small town, with an appearance by Lucy, and it is incredibly wrenching. Even Oh William is not something you are going to enjoy. I'm so sorry you had this experience.
ReplyDeleteI think I will definitely steer away from her. I mean, I'm sort of glad I read this because now I know, but perhaps Elizabeth Strout is the kind of person I'd like to have over to a dinner party, but not necessarily read her books!
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