My Name Is Lucy Barton is Elizabeth Strout’s fifth novel, and the first of the Lucy Barton collection. Published in 2016, it topped the New York Times bestseller list and made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize. It is a story reflecting on childhood trauma and how this shapes the person you become, and what a brilliant storyteller Stroud is. Stroud has an amazing ability to write in a conversational style that made me feel I was there, a fly on the wall to every interaction. The story is told through Lucy, focusing on the five days she spent in hospital when her mother visited. At the time in the hospital, Lucy is an author based in New York and mother of two with a husband.
Through the book, you hear of Lucy’s upbringing in Illinois, which was a troubled childhood with an abusive father. Back then, Lucy found solace in books, and the grades that followed were her ticket away for college. Now free from her family, she built a new life in New York. But for Lucy, coming from a sheltered and uncultured childhood, her understanding of the world is one of intrigue and often leads to her feeling uncomfortable.
During her childhood she recalls the judgement she and her family faced due to their poverty, how people would stare or make comments, and how much this impacted them. On reflection, Lucy’s parents gave everything they could, her mum being a good moral person but being judged so negatively. There is a comment by Lucy’s mum about how people were only her friend to make themselves feel better: an interesting observation by Strout, there is a lot of truth in that, of how people often compare to a worse situation for comfort.
Due to Lucy’s mother not stopping the abuse from her father, Lucy’s relationship with her mum is complicated, and leads to one of the book’s themes of ruthlessness. For Lucy, it’s the ruthlessness of leaving home and everything she knew, and how she needed to be ruthless to become an author.
There are many poignant conversations in this book, and one that struck me was Lucy’s mother saying how your life is a story that you can’t rewrite. There’s a theme of how we only have one story, there are no retakes in life.
This book really struck me, I loved the rawness of emotion and how deep we got to experience the character’s relationships. There is a lot of childhood pain, how we are shaped by it and can never let it go.