This is the third book in Elizabeth Strout's Amgash series, after My Name Is Lucy Barton and Anything Is Possible. An accomplished author, now in her sixties, Lucy is the central character once again. These days she's living in New York city and mourning the loss of her second husband David, a cellist. But the novel is mostly concerned with William, her first husband, with whom she retains a complicated relationship.

Lucy and William have two adult daughters and remain on amicable terms. In fact, they often call each other and meet up for advice, which William's new partner Estelle doesn't seem to have a problem with. Lucy still has some feelings for William but she also thinks back to the problems they had during their marriage, which caused her to leave him.

Over the course of a few days, William receives some shocking news. For one thing, it turns out he has a half-sister that he never knew about. He decides to travel to Maine to see if he can make contact with her, and asks Lucy to join him. The journey stirs old memories - Lucy remembers why she fell in love with him, but she also recalls all the ways in which he infuriated her.

The story is told in conversational style, which I'm not all that keen on in this instance. It consists mostly of Lucy telling anecdotes from her childhood and about her adult relationships, which makes it rather one-sided and doesn't have the same moments of insight or perception that a more balanced book like Olive Kitteridge has, for example. However, it does examine subjects like old age and marriage in a nuanced manner. And I admired the sensitive way it addresses childhood trauma - Lucy still bears the scars of her difficult, poverty-stricken upbringing, but she has learned to live with it. Overall, the book feels like catching up with an old friend, listening to her tell you about her joys and woes. And though she has some sad stories to tell, it is a pleasure to be back in Lucy Barton's company once again.

Favourite Quotes:
"Grief is such a— oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you."

"People are lonely, is my point here. Many people can’t say to those they know well what it is they feel they might want to say."

"As we drove I suddenly had a visceral memory of what a hideous thing marriage was for me at times those years with William: a familiarity so dense it filled up the room, your throat almost clogged with knowledge of the other so that it seemed to practically press into your nostrils— the odor of the other’s thoughts, the self-consciousness of every spoken word, the slight flicker of an eyebrow slightly raised, the barely perceptible tilting of the chin; no one but the other would know what it meant; but you could not be free living like that, not ever. Intimacy became a ghastly thing."

It took me a little while to get into this book but once the story unfolded I was intrigued. Lucy Barton who was recently widowed reconnects with her former husband and reflects on their earlier life together. It was interesting to read about her life and the friends they made along the way. I enjoyed this book.

This book is absolutely delightful. I had read the previous book about Lucy Barton, but this is also a stand alone novel. Telling the story of Lucy’s relationship with her ex husband and adult daughters, it makes a thought provoking read.

Strout here explores the relationship between Lucy Barton (and it helps if you have read the previous novel, though this does stand alone nonetheless) and her ex husband William, who, entering old age, approaches her for help.

Their relationship is loving and tender. The writing tells something about our shared humanity and ongoing love and tenderness that survives even a difficult marriage.

Another great book by Elizabeth Strout. A unique voice which looks at relationships especially otherness where Lucy Barton looks at how her upbringing affects relationships with her ex husband and her children.

Oh I loved this!

A painstakingly careful and thoughtful inspection of the lies we tell ourselves and others, and the mythologies we build around both to be able to move forward in the world, this is an acutely accurate and deeply sympathetic portrait of humanity and grief.

Everyone is flawed. Everyone one is contradictory. Everyone is merciful in their own - sometimes harmful - way. Because everyone is.

Exceptional.

I loved the way this book was written, (as though you were having a chat with someone and they were telling you about themselves), but I found the story a bit vague. I found William an unlikeable character and the narrator a bit weak. If you want a book that's a snapshot into people's lives, then this is the book for you. Well written and intresting.

I love Elizabeth Strout and I loved My Name is Lucy Barton, but I enjoyed this a little less than everything else I’ve read by her and felt faintly disappointed. ⁣
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This is about Lucy Barton’s relationship with her ex-husband William. The two remain on friendly terms and after his 70th birthday and the death of her second husband, he seeks Lucy’s help as he confronts a series of revelations about his late mother. There is real tenderness in her portrayal of the relationship between William and Lucy, the gentleness and generosity of their relationship against the history of their tumultuous marriage - even after all this time a form of love that never really fades away. As always, Strout is wonderfully insightful with an ability to capture the universal peculiarities of human feeling. In the middle of rural Maine, Lucy suddenly has a deep sense of belonging to this place she has never been to, an inexplicable sense that ‘these are my people’. ⁣
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Yet there was something about this book that felt less moving than her other novels. Lucy’s neuroticism felt slightly grating in this novel, and makes her significantly less sympathetic than a character like Olive Kitteridge. William was also a little unbearable, between his self-absorbed womanising, delicate male ego and the coddling he nonetheless expected from his ex wife. ⁣
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#OhWilliam #ElizabethStrout

Oh dear! My second try with Elizabeth Strout and my second failure, I'm afraid. I just can't seem to connect to this writing style, somehow. It's clear and transparent but where I think I'm supposed to feel emotional pain and wryness, I just feel... nothing. It's probably me, not the book - sorry!

For readers familiar with Ms. Strout's previous two novels, Oh William! will seem like sitting down with an old friend. Lucy Barton is one of those rare people with whom you feel that no experience is too painful or personal to discuss. She emerged from the nightmare of her childhood into the unsettled life of a celebrated writer who was once married to William, an emotionally distant and chronically unfaithful man. The new novel begins after the death of Lucy's second husband and the collapse of William's third marriage, when his unexpected dependence forces an awareness of her own strength and a re-evaluation of the beliefs that have sustained her. Lucy is one of the most unsparingly honest characters in contemporary literature. In her struggles, failings, and doubts, we recognize ourselves

. For me, the book is a continuation of the continuous untangling and re-tangling of the relationship between Lucy and William. In both Lucy Barton and Oh William, there were things I loved about both Lucy and William, but there were also things I hated about both those characters as well. Just like in real life, nothing is all good or all bad, and these two people are perfect examples of that. Strout even has a quote on her website that drives this home, “It is not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ that interests me as a writer, but the murkiness of human experience and the consistent imperfections of our lives.” Murky completely describes Lucy and William’s relationship, where each individual is a character in the story and their relationship is another character entirely..

I resonated with so many of the feelings and experiences described in this book. Strout has a beautiful and apt writing style that captures the essence of what is important in any human interaction — even within oneself. I was often brought to tears — not because anything particularly sad was happening — but because she captured it so perfectly.

Just as Elizabeth Strout’s last novel, Olive Again, revisited a much-loved character so Oh William! renews our acquaintance with the eponymous narrator of My Name is Lucy Barton who has unexpectedly bumped into her first husband.

Lucy’s beloved second husband died a year ago. William has his own problems and is about to accumulate more. Before his wife leaves him, taking their ten-year-old daughter with her, she gives William a subscription to a genealogy website and now he’s been faced with a bombshell. All this, together with the night terrors he’s been suffering have deeply unsettled him. He asks Lucy to accompany him to Maine where he wants to meet the family he had no idea he had. Lucy is left pondering her own impoverished childhood, her relationship with William’s mother and, ultimately, her marriage to this man with whom she had always felt safe.
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Strout neatly slips in details from Lucy’s past, helpful for those who have yet to read My Name is Lucy Barton or have a sketchy memory, reminding us of Lucy’s successful writing career, her aching loneliness and her desolate childhood. As ever, Strout’s characters are complex, her themes deeply human and her writing is subtle, leaving much for her readers to infer. Another Strout triumph, although it has to be said that while I love Lucy but my heart belongs to Olive.

I am a great fan of Elizabeth Strout's books, particularly the Olive Kitteridge novels. Oh William! has some of the original charm and quirkiness of the first Lucy Barton book but, for me, does not quite have the same bite, although I really enjoyed reading it to fill in many of the gaps about Lucy's life. I think this is beautifully written in a disarmingly casual, artless style that belies its cleverness at engaging the reader and carrying them along with the plot. As ever I was sorry when it ended, and I look forward to reading another instalment from the well-crafted pen of this author.

Elizabeth Strout is one of my favourite authors, an exceptional writer and I was really excited to see not only that she’d written a new book but that Lucy Barton would be returning.

Reading the opening chapters of this book was like catching up with an old friend, comforting and thoroughly enjoyable. I love that Strout can convey so much in relatively slim volumes.

When we meet Lucy now, she has lost her second husband and her first husband, William is married to his third wife. Lucy’s character has softened over the years , she’s achieved success as an author and seems happier and more comfortable in her skin although she’s still shaped influenced by her early life, references to this appear throughout the book. It was great to know Lucy as an older woman but I can’t say the same for William, he’s not a character I warmed too and a lot of this book centres around him, although I very much enjoyed reading about his mothers life.

Even though this book is the third book of the series, it can be read as a stand alone novel, I think I’d recommend reading or re-reading My Name is Lucy Barton before hand though. I am sorry I didn’t as I think I possibly would have enjoyed this more if I’d reread earlier Lucy.

I did find myself less eager to pick the book up as the story went on. I’ve read Strout’s other books in one sitting so this was unusual for me. I think it was because of my lack of love for William as a character and not a reflection on the writing, which as always, was wonderful.

A comforting ,gentle read but probably my least favourite of the Amgash series , unfortunately.

Elizabeth Strout is a fantastic writer and this book, like her previous novels, is beautifully written. I really like the character of Lucy Barton, In Oh William! age and life have mellowed her and she is much softer, wiser and more forgiving than she was in My Name is Lucy Barton. I think that readers will get so much more from Oh William! if they have also read the first book and so are aware of the emotional journey Lucy's character has been on previously, I'm not sure what I would have made of the book if I hadn't read the first book,

For me, Strout's characters are always struggling with the regret and sadness of not living lives that are really true to themselves. Sometimes that makes for emotionally uncomfortable reading but in Oh William! Lucy's character seems to have finally come to terms with who she truly is and what she truly feels. I think readers will finish this book feeling content that Lucy has come through everything that life has thrown at her and is okay with herself and with the choices she made along the way.

For me this felt more like a biography / autobiography than a novel. It isn't my favourite book by Elizabeth Strout. I liked it but I missed the gossip about the ordinary people around her that is in her other books. I didn't warm to William and I didn't really care about him or what happened to him. I found the story of his Mother much more interesting. If you've read the other Lucy Barton books this will tie up some loose ends for you. Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

This book is subtitled “Amgash #3”. And in preparation for reading this one, I re-read “Amgash #1” (“My Name Is Lucy Barton”) and “Amgash #2” (“Anything Is Possible”). The first thing to say is that this is more of a collection than a series, by which I mean you don’t need to read them in order. I would go as far as to say that you really should read “My Name Is Lucy Barton” before reading “Oh William”, but you can skip “Anything Is Possible” and come back to it later if you want. “Amgash #1” tells us the story of Lucy’s time in hospital when her mother comes to visit for a few days and it opens up Lucy’s history along with that of several other people she knows. “Amgash #2” explores the lives of some of those “several other people”, so Lucy is not so much the focus, whereas here, in “Amgash #3”, the spotlight returns to Lucy. In the first book, she told us she wasn’t ready to tell us about her relationship with her first husband, William, but, as the title of this book indicates, now, several years later, she is ready.

One of the reasons it is worth knowing all of this is that it stops you thinking, as I almost did when I saw the book cover on NetGalley, that this is some kind of Enid Blyton story about a naughty schoolchild. It was only when I saw the author that I realised who the William referred to must be and understood what the book was going to be about. In the first book, Lucy said ”This is not the story of my marriage, I cannot tell that story”. Here, she starts out with ”I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William.”

If you have read “My Name Is Lucy Barton” (which, as I say, you really should before reading this), then you will know what kind of thing to expect. All three books in the collection are fundamentally sad books, but the first and the last somehow manage to include some hope (I found the middle book, a collection of short stories, to be unremittingly depressing and therefore much harder work to read). The story in this book is driven by events that mean Lucy and William start to spend much more time together than they have since their marriage failed (they have remained on good terms all the way through). Just as Lucy’s time in hospital talking to her mother meant that she found herself reflecting back on her early life, so time spent with William here causes her to re-evaluate her past.

A persistent theme through all the books, including this one, is people’s roots. “Where you come from” is an important thing and it is about circumstances rather than geography i.e. do you come from poverty or wealth, from a loving family or a neglectful family. Lucy, as we have learned from the other books, had a very poor start to life (she “comes from nothing”) but has “made something” of herself. But she is always aware of where she started from and it casts a shadow over her life. The fact that others don’t see that when they look at her now leads onto another key theme in the book: how impossible it is to really know other people, or be known by them.

There’s a lot of sadness throughout this whole collection, but it is clear that the author is not setting out to depress people. The dedication reads, ”And to anyone who needs it - this is for you”. And it is true that somehow these books, especially #1 and #3, do find a way to lift the spirits despite the sadness of many of the characters.

I am always keen to read Elizabeth Strout’s novels and have never been disappointed. She is an exceptional fiction writer.

This book is a follow up to My Name is Lucy Barton although it is not necessary to have read the first story in order to enjoy this easy to read tale of Lucy. In this second story Lucy is recently widowed and misses her second husband David very much. She is still close to her first husband William and has a close and strong relationship with their two grown up daughters. This story does revisit some of the themes from the earlier book but focuses much more on William's story as told from Lucy's perspective. William is now in his seventies and is finding it difficult to cope with some secrets from his past that he has recently discovered. The ever patient Lucy is helping him to cope.
I do enjoy Elizabeth Strout's writing but in terms of chraacters I don't find Lucy Barton as memorable as Olive Ketteridge, the main character of another series of Strout's books. I found this new Lucy Barton novel a little thin in terms of plot and character development. I would rate the book as 3.5 and round up to 4 for the purposes of the starring system.
My thanks to the publisher via Net Galley for sending me a complimentary ARC of this title via Net Galley in return for an honest review.

A warm comforting bath of a book. I have met Lucy Barton in the previous books in this series, she can be quite acerbic and not always likeable. In this book she has just lost her second husband and her first husband, William, is at a similar loose end. The grief softens Lucy and she becomes a much more likeable character.

I very much enjoy Elizabeth Strout's prose - I can imagine short, dismissive phrases such as 'and that is all I want to say about that' coming from an elderly woman who is reviewing her life, and perhaps finding that she was not always right. The change in the relationship between Lucy and William develops beautifully, they grow to appreciate each other again and recognise each others faults.

Lovely read.

I an not sure why but I love books by Elizabeth Strout. They are quirky and very readable. The characters are always quite complex and their personalities are laid bare . Brilliant.