My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, published by Penguin Random House LLC in 2016. This is a work of fiction but if you think about how the mind work it is right on point , which makes it almost seem like non-fiction. How many times does something cause you to reflect on something in the past and that is what happens in this book. You find out about her home life by her reflections after talks with her mother or talks with her friends or family. But the most reflections comes from her talks with her mother in a hospital setting where Lucy is basically captive.
It took me a bit to warm up to it, so I may have to go back and reread the initial chapters. Her stream of thought is like most peoples. It jumps around according to what is happening in their lives. The other day my husband was your have an interesting stream of consciousness, we were driving and things along the route just jumped out at me and of course I just blurted out what ever came to mind. Nothing hurtful, sometimes songs, poems, something someone said to me in the past. That is the feeling I get from this book.
Her husband is somewhat neglectful, his wife is in the hospital for 2 months and he decides to have an affair with the babysitter of her two children, which she finds out much later. he brings he mother in, so that he doesn't have to sit with his wife in the hospital, because he does not like them.
In her past, is abuse, but you don't get the whole story, we see snippets and then have to infer as to what really was going on. She tells her story of her life in the hospital and what happens surrounding that, before, during and after. But she does not delve into this info because she says that's another story. She is given a quote form another author " You only have one story to tell" and we hear this particular story, making you want to find out more about her life.
Very interesting way to set up a story. I wonder as with Elizabeth Strout's Olive books will we see a sequel about Lucy, so she can tell us another story.
