![]() ![]() Our inner lives are unaccountable in so many ways, and that's why fiction that follows logical rules about who should feel what and when rarely feels real. She can't say the words "I love you," but she sits in quiet watchfulness all night, and tells her stories and small town gossip all day. And yet, in spite of everything, her mother loves her. The reasons for this alienation unspool slowly: a lonely childhood full of silences, poverty, and abuse. In this motionless and melancholy state, she is visited by her mother, whom Lucy has not seen for years. ![]() The result is a novel of gorgeous simplicity and restraint.Īn infection confines Lucy Barton to a hospital bed for nine weeks. ![]() In My Name is Lucy Barton, there are no plot twists to distract or verbal acrobatics to charm: the story must rest instead on its bare emotional truth. Simplicity is a brave choice in a novel as well as in a dress: it means there are no forgiving distractions and no flattering cuts. "Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress," goes the first line of Middlemarch. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title My Name Is Lucy Barton Author Elizabeth Strout ![]()
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