Elizabeth Strout brings us the story of Lucy and William. This is the third book in Elizabeth Strout's Amgash series. Lucy shares with the reader her story about her life from the beginning. She tells us about her relationship with William, her ex-husband and all that they have gone through from their time in college, their marriage, their children, and their divorce. Through it all, they have remained in each other's lives. William asks her to go with him on a trip after discovering something from his past.

We learn more about Lucy and William as the years have gone by and how their choices have shaped the decisions in their lives. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I would like to thank NetGalley and the Senior Marketing Manager of Random House for this privilege.

Elizabeth Strout has done it again! I always look forward to another novel in the Shirley Falls web, and this one does not disappoint. All of Strout's narrators have an incredible voice, but Lucy Barton is an extra treat. I absolutely gulped this down, while simultaneously trying to savor it. It is a slim and quiet story, but there is incredible depth of emotion told in these vignettes. Fans of Olive Kittredge, The Burgess Boys, and of course I am Lucy Barton will not be disappointed. I was thrilled to read an ARC of Oh William! through NetGalley. [Posted on Goodreads]

I absolutely DEVOURED this book. I've been in a reading slump, and it was just what I needed. Strout's characters have such unique, recognizable voices, and Lucy carries you along through her narrative in such an intriguing way. Really interesting view of the different layers of relationships, how they make us who we are, and how intertwined we all are—whether we like it or not!

I really wanted to like and love this book more than I did given the author's previous books especially, My Name is Lucy Barton. But this book was all over the place and it just could not hold my interest. It is not good when a plot has no point and the story is going nowhere. Unfortunately, this book was not for me and I cannot recommend it. Hoping her next book is better. This one is better as a coaster for my cocktail.

Thanks to Netgalley, Elizabeth Strout and Random House Publishing Group Random House division for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 10/19/21

Couldn't quite get into this and figure out the reason for the story' I saw who wrote it and really liked her other books is why I choose to read it and finished reading.

Oh William! I am a fan and have enjoyed reading Elizabeth Stout's books. I love the characters and their stories. In this novel, Lucy Barton narrates the story of her ex husband. They have remained friends after their divorce. After receiving a membership for a ancestry finder from his 3rd wife, William and Lucy go on a discovery trip to learn more about his family and specifically his half sister.
Oh William! Oh Lucy! Oh Everyone! "We all have mysteries. This may be the only thing in the world I know to be true."
Thanks NetGalley for this book! It is a good one!

I really wanted to like this book as I love Elizabeth Strout's writing. While portions of the book kept me involved, most of the novel dragged, making the same points over and over again. Lucy Barton is not my favorite character anyway and her relationship with William mystified me. Life is tough, not everyone does what we want them to do, get over it! Sorry to be so negative. I received an advance copy of the book and am posting a review of my own feelings upon reading it.

ucy Barton returns in Elizabeth Strout's "Oh William!" in a narrative that rambles and meanders its way in every direction before finishing with a fairly unsatisfying conclusion. We're left to wonder why Lucy and William ever married in the first place.

A lot of time has passed since I read Lucy's self-titled novel. I remember enjoying that book and over-identifying with Barton, who grew up poor and not feeling well-loved by her family. In "Oh William!" Strout's Lucy Barton just wants to tell us two things about William, her former husband. We got sidetracked so often by comments about her second husband, now deceased, and her former mother-in-law, no deceased, that I almost forgot what two things she wanted to tell us.

Lucy's narrative often is contradictory and seemingly pointless. There are points, though. In helping William to navigate a family he barely knew he had, Lucy discovers a few things about herself and her relationship with William.

I'm just not sure the journey was entirely worth the discovery.

#NetGalley #OhWilliam

This review is posted on Facebook and Facebook groups 52 Books; Books, Brews and Bibliophiles Too; and The Book Club Girls.

I did not enjoy this book at all. The writing style wasn't for me and the story just seemed all over the place.

Brilliant writing; In two words, “oh, William” Strout is able to convey emotions ranging from anger, disgust, sadness to empathy, warmth, and understanding. Both Lucy and William are vividly drawn. I didn’t really like them that much, but they are so recognizable. She doesn’t waver on the ending—it provides closure and lots to reflect on. The one issue I had is that Lucy makes so many references to information that she expects we learned in previous books. That’ helpful only if you’ve read and remember them all..

Oh William by Elizabeth Strout. William came across as a self centered, uncaring, depressing, and frankly boring man. Lucy just seemed to ramble on and on. Did not realize this was a part of a trilogy. If I had read the other books in the series perhaps I could have gotten a better understanding of the characters and their interactions.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

While this one started off a bit slow, I was quickly reminded why I keep coming back to Elizabeth Strout. Using Lucy Barton as a vessel, the insights on relationships and inner turmoil are quietly profound.

"A friend had said to me once, 'Whenever I don't know what to do, I watch what I am doing.' And what I was doing that year was leaving, even though I had not yet left."

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read!

OH WILLIAM! (October, 2021)
By Elizabeth Strout
Random House, 221 pages.
★★

Fiction writers often say that their characters “surprised” them. It’s a mysterious-sounding but accurate way of saying that the logic of the narrative forces the author to consider what a character would do in a particular circumstance. In that sense, characters evolve personalities that are not necessarily how a writer first imagined them. That’s among the reasons why characters return for a second act, or a third or more. John Updike famously penned a tetralogy and a novella spotlighting Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom and won Pulitzer Prizes for two of them. Crime fiction writers endlessly place their detectives in new situations. It’s important, though, to know when to part with a character.

Elizabeth Strout wrote two Olive Kitteridge novels, won a Pulitzer for the first, and praise for the second. In 2016, she published the acclaimed My Name is Lucy Barton and followed the next year with Anything is Possible. Now, four years later, Oh William! is book three of the Lucy Barton cycle, though it’s ostensibly about her aging first husband. I was underwhelmed by Anything is Possible and less so by Oh William! One reason is that I find Lucy as relentlessly annoying as William is self-centered. Though she’s now in her 60s, a feted author, and the mother with two adult daughters, she remains a girl-woman. Were this a male character, I’m sure some reviewers would be screaming, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, grow up.”

Those who’ve followed Lucy know about her impoverished childhood and emotionally distant parents. Having grown up financially strapped myself, I’d not deny that such experiences can scar and carry over into adulthood, but most of us manage to move on. Not Lucy. As we meet her now, she’s recently widowed. Her first husband, William Gerhardt, now wants more from Lucy, though not in the way you might think.

William, an accomplished parasitologist, still goes to his university lab every day, though he no longer teaches. At 70, he’s not the womanizer he used to be, but he remains the same emotionally challenged egoist that prompted Lucy to walk out on him and her young family decades earlier. He’s partnerless again as Estelle, his third wife, has left him. Although Lucy and William remained friends–he calls her “Button” and he is “Pillie” to her–neither is looking for any sort of made-for-each-other redemptive winter romance. What William really wants is for Lucy to go northern Maine with him.

Courtesy of an Ancestry.com gift from one of his daughters, William has learned he has a half-sister. He has no idea what he wants to do with that information except make his way to Houlton, a down-on-its-heels town on the U.S./Canada border in the middle of potato country. He hopes to figure out his next step when he gets there. Inexplicably, Lucy agrees to come along. There’s really not much to suggest why she would do so, other than the fact that his late mother, Caroline Trask Gerhardt, was one of Lucy’s early adult mentors.

The trip to northern Maine yields surprises about Caroline, William’s German father, and his half-sister, though surprisingly little about our two protagonists. Suffice it to say that those old enough to remember the Gerhardts don’t have much good to say about them, and that includes Lois, William’s previously unknown sibling. Alas, William and Lucy are the same woe-is-me whiny individuals we’ve seen before. I doubt it was Strout’s intention, but this part of the novel’s most revealing parts concern how places such as Bangor, Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield, and Houlton are closer to despair than to the American Dream.

The book’s title reflects the fact that Lucy repeatedly utters the phrase “Oh William!” She uses it to express surprise, sympathy, frustration, and futility. From this reader’s perspective, this repetition is more of a reflection upon a paucity of fresh ideas than any sort of emotional roller coaster. Still another indication is that Strout resorts to having Lucy explain things by referencing her novels; that is, she’s speaking in Strout’s voice rather than her own. Strout seeks to build parallels between Caroline and Lucy, but it ends up as a mechanistic contrivance rather than probing Lucy’s psyche. Perhaps that’s because Lucy doesn’t have much depth. For a character who has allegedly become a renowned author who has traveled extensively and feels at home among the chaos of New York City, Lucy is akin to a frightened gray rabbit. Lucy Barton was interesting to contemplate the first time, but not a second and third. Strout needs to move on. Lucy Barton is no Rabbit Angstrom.

Rob Weir

Fans of Elizabeth Strout will be delighted with this latest story about Lucy Barton. I really enjoyed the confessional tone of this first person narrative, in which Lucy tells the story of how her ex-husband discovers a secret his late mother kept from him. Well written and readable -- Strout's characters leap off the page fully formed, even the minor characters. Readers who have not yet read My Name is Lucy Barton would do well to start there first. My thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Well I probably should have started by reading My Name is Lucy Barton, but this read well even without the first one. I love Elizabeth Strout's style and the way she dives deep into the range of anxieties in humans. Such good character building!

Elizabeth Strout has really conquered the Trilogy thing! I am usually more interested in the first or second book in a series but by the third book I am ready to move on. She got this one right. It is so interesting to see into Lucy Burton's thoughts about life and love and heartache. She remained friends with her first husband whom she loved and had daughters with many years ago. As William and Lucy age they are still there for one another even though they had both moved on with new lives.

Seeing Lucy and William come back together as bonded friends later in life is so beautiful in so many ways. She knows him so well and he needs her and trusts her to be there for him. She spends time with him as he goes on a journey in the literal sense as well as emotionally. I enjoyed this book tremendously and appreciate being given the opportunity to read and review it. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for that opportunity.

I loved Elizabeth Stout's "Olive Kitteridge" and the sequel, "Olive Again".as well as several of her other books. However, "Oh William" missed the mark for me. The main character, Lucy Barton, was first met in Stout's book by that same name. Lucy had a very troubled time while growing up due to her family's circumstances and the impact has been with her throughout her life. I'd recommend reading "Lucy Barton" prior to reading "Oh William!" to understand Lucy's background. "Oh William!" is about Lucy's first husband William, and their post-divorce ongoing relationship. Lucy is a very insecure person and questions everything she says and does. I tired of the stream of consciousness dialog that Lucy has with herself. The last part of the book dealt with a trip that Lucy and William take to find his half-sister whom he just found out about. This part of the book had more of a plot and had you thinking about how much we often don't know about people we are close to and even ourselves.

I received this book from Netgalley for an honest review. Much thanks!

Elizabeth Strout has written a near perfect novel about life, again. She manages to translate what goes on in her characters heads to the page flawlessly. I had not read My Name is Lucy Barton of which this is a follow up story, but after reading, Oh, William have it on my nightstand.

I would like to thank Michel Hoak of Random House and Net Galley for the opportunity to review this advance copy of Oh William!.I had read Olive Kitteridge a number of years ago, but had not ready anything by Elizabeth Strout since then. There are actually two other books with the same characters (the Amgash series) as Oh William!, however it was not essential to have read them prior to this. Oh William! is the story of Lucy Barton, recently widowed( second husband, William was her first), with two grown daughters. She is a writer, who has written about her life, and is successful. William, is about to go thru a divorce ,and is reaching out to Lucy. William has found information through an Ancestry site that changes his life, and has him questioning much of what he believed about his late mother. We see his mother through Lucy's eyes as well, and realize that things are often not as they seem. It is almost a series of vignettes, of Lucy in her earlier years, and as she is now, and how she has changed. It is also Lucy now, wanting to help William and reconnect with him as a friend, almost as a way to help him accept the changes in his life.It Is a thoughtful, well written book, I enjoyed it.

Lucy Barton, is an accomplished writer who chose her individual happiness/success (also does success mean happiness? Or is happiness a success?) over her family. Later in life after the death of her second husband, she begins to question what she really knows about herself and her relationships with others. Her first husband is in a transitional period as well and invites Lucy on a road trip. The book is from Lucy’s perspective and she makes sense of the present by telling stories of things and people in her past. There is so much to this book and to these stories Lucy shares, just a moving novel.