It’s winter of 2020, during the lockdown, and she finds herself in Maine, alone with William, unable to read or write. Lucy, a recent widow and bestselling novelist, has just finished a national book tour and abruptly cancels the European leg of her trip. And so begins Strout’s journey, via Lucy and clan, through the upside-down world we’ve all inhabited these last few years. They’re heading to Maine, where he has rented a house overlooking the water to ride out the pandemic. Lucy by the Sea is a book I read with a full heart and a desire to pass it on to my daughter, and recommend whole heartedly to other readers.“Lucy, I’m picking you up and we’re leaving,” William says.

Lucy by the Sea is a novel about love, about marriage, about our love for our children no matter what their age – while acknowledging that they were never really ours – only ours to love. As Lucy thinks to herself, “It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us”. I found that as I read this novel I felt heartbroken at Lucy’s experiences – the fear, the division among people who believed in the science of vaccines and those who do not, the constant watching of news, the fear of living in a city.įor Lucy, as for many, this is a time of change, by choice or by circumstance. Over time we have all accommodated what we have lived with over the past two years and more.

As we all know too well, it is a time when families are afraid to be together for fear that we might infect each other. Lucy and William’s two adult daughters live in Brooklyn, and there is also concern for their safety and welfare. The stay in Maine becomes months, then years, rather than weeks. We know, of course, that this pandemic does not pass anytime soon. We know Bob from an earlier novel, The Burgess Boys. William has rented a house in a small town on the coast of Maine, where his friend Bob Burgess lives. When William insists that she leave the city, she reluctantly agrees. It is the beginning of the pandemic in New York City, where Lucy has lived all her adult life. I liked Oh William! But I did not love it – Lucy By the Sea I loved, loved, loved! The previous book to this new one Oh William! has been nominated for the Booker Prize. Those who have read all of Elizabeth Strout’s earlier novels will know Lucy well. I thought of this interview often as I read Elizabeth Strout’s new novel Lucy by the Sea. Though she did grow up in poverty and went to college on a scholarship it was not the abject neglected existence of the fictional Lucy when she was a child. She talked about the fact that she writes fiction – that she is not Lucy Barton, and the books are not autobiographical. I watched an interview with Elizabeth Strout, during which she talked about her books, and her character, Lucy Barton.

Lucy barton by the sea