5★
“I walked around and around the house. I did not know where to put my mind.”

March 2020, Maine, USA
Lucy is by the sea in a big, older house that her ex-husband William has rented to whisk her away to escape the ravages of the coronavirus in New York City. I use the overworked phrase “whisk her away” because that is what it feels like.

He tells her to pack a bag, they are to leave immediately, and then he sweeps her out of her apartment, her home for the last many years that she shared with her adored late husband, David.

She and William, once married for twenty years, have two adult daughters whom William has already told of his plans. He advised them and their husbands to do the same, get out of the city.

“ ‘And don’t tell your mother yet, but please do this. I will deal with her.’ And so they hadn’t told me. Which is interesting because I feel that I am close to our girls, I would have said closer to them than William is.”

Lucy agrees to go. In the first few pages she says:

“Here is what I did not know that morning in March: I did not know that I would never see my apartment again. I did not know that one of my friends and a family member would die of this virus. I did not know that my relationship with my daughters would change in ways I could never have anticipated. I did not know that my entire life would become something new.”

She has said previously that William is the one who introduced her to the world (from her extremely poor background), and he has always made her feel safe. This is how she opens the book.

“Like many others, I did not see it coming.

But William is a scientist, and he saw it coming; he saw it sooner than I did, is what I mean.”

She had also accompanied him on a trip to Maine to follow up an ancestry search William had done about his mother, whom Lucy knew.

Lucy’s own horrific childhood was the subject of My Name Is Lucy Barton, with more family stories in Anything Is Possible. The story of the trip to Maine is told in Oh William!

You don’t need to have read these, but this will be more meaningful if you do. William is still bossy and irritating, while Lucy stays outwardly calm. Outwardly.

“Sometimes I would have to leave the house in the dark and walk down by the water, swearing out loud.”

When she feels overwhelmed, as I imagine we all have, she appeals in her mind to her ‘mother’, not her real, abusive, late mother.

“ ‘Mom,’ I cried inside myself to the nice mother I had made up, ‘Mom, I can’t do this’! And the nice mother I had made up said, You are really doing so well, honey. ‘But, Mom, I hate this!’ And she said, I know, honey. Just hang in there and it will end.

But it did not seem like it would end.”

[Note – Strout uses italics, but I added the single quotation marks around Lucy’s own internal speech because not all reviews recognise html formatting. Remarks from Lucy’s invented mother are not italicised in the original.]

Lucy notes the growing division in America, the masked and the unmasked, the protests and the police. This suggestion of civil war worries her. Waiting in the car in Maine while William is in a shop, she looks at the police cruiser parked next to them.

“I watched him so carefully.

So carefully I watched him.

I wondered, What is it like to be a policeman, especially now, these days? What is it like to be you?
. . .
In a way that is not uncommon for me as a writer, I sort of began to feel what it was like to be inside his skin. It sounds very strange, but it is almost as though I could feel my molecules go into him and his come into me.”

Lucy is speaking about molecules, of course, but it could just as well be Strout, I think, who so deftly puts us into Lucy’s mind. Seeing the Capitol riots on TV, Lucy remembers being humiliated and bullied in her childhood because she was dirty and smelly. She wonders, if this had continued all her life, what might have become of her?

“I suddenly felt that I saw what these people were feeling; they were like my sister, Vicky, and I understood them. They had been made to feel poorly about themselves, they were looked at with disdain, and they could no longer stand it.”

It’s no wonder that Lucy is an acclaimed writer. She understands people better than most and has genuine concern for them.

“Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us.”

Thanks to Pulitzer Prize-winner, Elizabeth Strout, we see how Lucy deals with the swings. I should add that it was nice to see Bob Burgess (from The Burgess Boys become good friends with Lucy and William. Other characters from other books get a mention, too.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the preview copy from which I have quoted, so quotations may have changed.

Lucy does lockdown

After a number of ‘Lucy’ books, we might be forgiven for being a little dubious about whether Lucy can tell us anything new. But once again, I, for one, am almost overwhelmed by Lucy’s wisdom and humanity.

I’d almost forgotten (so soon!) what lockdown was like. Lucy paints a vivid picture for us of the sheer terror of the early months, the divisions in society around vaccines, the plight of those living alone, and how much we relished our regained freedoms when the world began to open up. Bereavement, infertility (a much overlooked subject), free will versus determinism, marriage, parent-child relationships, new and old friendships – underneath the deceptively simple style, with its short sentences, there are profound truths.

One delight of the Lucy novels is the reappearance of old friends. The Burgess boys, Oliver Kitteridge, and Isabelle Goodrow, all put in an appearance or are mentioned, and I enjoyed becoming reacquainted with them, with Bob Burgess being a particularly sympathetic character.

Lucy’s own story is that she can never quite shake off the shame of poverty, even though she is now a successful and sophisticated novelist. Every so often, her background rears its head, undermining her hard-won comfort and prosperity. However, we cannot but feel that it this experience that makes Lucy so empathetic to some of the less attractive characters in the novel.

Lucy and William are getting on in years and William has had a cancer scare. I do hope there will be a fifth Lucy novel.

I will post this review on Amazon as soon as reviewing is open.

Another outing for the wonderful Lucy Barton and her sanctimonious ex husband William. I really don’t know how or why she puts up with him, but in this book they leave New York together to stay in an isolated clifftop house in Maine to get away from the pandemic in the city. I think Lucy is a bit too willing to please, but her inner thoughts are fascinating and addictive, and we learn so much about the private life of a pretty ordinary woman. - that’s not an opportunity that comes along very often, and Elizabeth Strout certainly does it brilliantly. William is not a likeable character, but Lucy is full of charm - and doubts, anxieties, small joys and generosity of spirit, just like the rest of us. This makes her an appealing character, and this novel a an appealing read, if with occasional irritations, mostly when the reader would like to give Lucy a good talking to about the way she lets her ex husband treat her!

The Lucy Barton books are by far my favourite books at the moment.
I have read them all and I warm more and more to each one, I don't know how long the author can keep the characters up, but I hope that it is for a long time.
Considering that this book was probably written in lockdown, and definitely was influenced by lockdown it is brilliant.
I have been reading a lot of Elena Ferrante books recently and the styles of the two authors are to my mind very similar. You don't get 'chocolate box' characters doing all of the things of your dreams. You get real people doing believable things! If you have enjoyed Elena Ferrante books read Elizabeth Strout. If you enjoy Elizabeth Strout books read Elena Ferrante. If you know of other authors who have similar styles please let me know.

Another fantastic book by Elizabeth Strout who as I have just implied is currently my joint favourite author.
Only Amy and Isabelle to go, and then I guess I'll have to start reading them all again.
Congratulations to Elizabeth Strout for another great book and my thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy for honest review.

I am a great fan of Elizabeth Strout's books - once read, totally hooked, I find, amongst my friends and fellow readers. I was thrilled to see another book in the Lucy Barton series, and thoroughly enjoyed revisiting her former relationship with her ex-husband during the American equivalent of the Covid lock-down - in their case self-imposed, I think. I love her subtle and engaging style and the way her writing envelops and absorbs the reader, as if you have known and met her characters. They are completely credible, complete with their foibles, failings and honesty, and it is a real pleasure to be in their company once again. Long may she write!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Lucy and William are back and I think I can say that this was my favourite book of the series. It takes place as the covid pandemic hits and follows Lucy and William as the leave New York to isolate in rural Maine.
At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to read about the pandemic but this is so well written and captures the mood of 2020 very well. I think this was the perfect backdrop to this new Lucy Barton novel and made the story feel a bit more relatable and relevant.
There were plenty of ups and downs for the family as the year progresses and I found myself quietly captivated by the whimsical style and keenly reading on, consuming this novel in a few short hours.

"Here is what I did not know that morning in March: I did not know that I would never see my apartment again. I did not know that one of my friends and a family member would die of this virus. I did not know that my relationship with my daughters would change in ways I could never have anticipated. I did not know that my entire life would become something new."

Covid was always going to rear its head in the books we read, sooner rather than later. I didn't expect Elizabeth Strout to be one of the first to cover the subject but she manages to tie it into the Lucy Barton series with trademark insight and sensitivity.

At the start of this story, Lucy is living in her New York apartment and about to go on another book tour. When the coronavirus shows up, she is inclined towards sticking her head in the sand and hoping it blows over, like most people. But her first husband William has other ideas. He realises that they need to get out of the city and invites her to stay in a house he has rented on the Maine coast. Reluctantly she agrees, and when the horrors of the pandemic are relayed on the daily news, she is relieved to have followed his advice. The slower pace of life takes some getting used to, but she makes friends, and finds somebody she can really open up to in her new neighbour, Bob Burgess. And her relationship with William, now platonic, show signs into developing into something more. Though worry is never far from her mind, and her difficult childhood still comes back to haunt her, Lucy finds herself adapting to this unpredictable new existence in her own way.

I can understand if people wouldn't want to read a story with Covid at its core - we've all had enough of hearing about it. But Elizabeth Strout has a way of examining the pandemic that makes it worthwhile - she describes the human spirit that triumphs over adversity, the families and communities that come together when such a tragedy strikes. She's not afraid to delve into the fear and anxiety that many people had when the news broke. Lucy is just as confused and as helpless as the rest of us were, and I found it reassuring to read about a character that experienced the same doubts that I had. I also liked how this novel ties in with other stories in the Strout multiverse, with the likes of Olive Kitteridge and the Burgess boys making appearances that fans of her work will get a kick out of. All in all, it's another satisfying and absorbing episode of the Lucy Barton narrative - I hope we don't have to wait too long for the next one.

Favourite Quotes:
"Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us."

"Even as all of this went on, even with the knowledge that my doctor had said it would be a year, I still did not . . . I don’t know how to say it, but my mind was having trouble taking things in. It was as though each day was like a huge stretch of ice I had to walk over. And in the ice were small trees stuck there and twigs, this is the only way I can describe it, as though the world had become a different landscape and I had to make it through each day without knowing when it would stop, and it seemed it would not stop, and so I felt a great uneasiness."

"It hurt my heart with a heaviness as though a damp and dirty dishcloth lay across it."

"I got up quietly and went downstairs. And I kept thinking about this. I thought: For one hour that day outside of Chicago, I had felt my childhood humiliation so deeply again. And what if I had continued to feel that my entire life, what if all the jobs I had taken in my life were not enough to really make a living, what if I felt looked down upon all the time by the wealthier people in this country, who made fun of my religion and my guns. I did not have religion and I did not have guns, but I suddenly felt that I saw what these people were feeling; they were like my sister, Vicky, and I understood them. They had been made to feel poorly about themselves, they were looked at with disdain, and they could no longer stand it."

to be honest, i was a little hesitant about reading a book set during the pandemic. literary fiction is my favourite genre, so i don't exactly read for escapism, but The Pandemic still felt as though it might be a little too recent and close to home for me. (i feel similarly about books with plots that rely a lot on social media, i'm not too sure why.)

however, elizabeth sprout wrote the pandemic *well*. and i was pleasantly surprised by the book as a whole.

the writing style took me a little while to get used to. it's a little chatty and repetitive and informal while also slightly detached, but once i got used to it, i was quite endeared to it. it felt really human, like lucy was recounting her memories to me in person, in the somewhat forgetful and nervous way only someone who's lived through a pandemic can.

i also appreciated that the author did not shy away from presenting every character as deeply flawed people. litfic can hardly ever be said to have a "hero" or a "villain", as it is made to explore human nature, and this book is a great personification of human nature.

i don't particularly have any glaring issues with the book, although i do think some of the real events mentioned could have been dealt with with more nuance and care (this is a subjective problem that pops up whenever anything remotely political is mentioned in any form of media, however!). yet i cannot give this book 5* because of the kind of book it is: a quiet exploration of human nature, while enjoyable, will struggle to be especially profound or life-changing. although profound is certainly not the aim of this book and the book was perhaps as enjoyable as it possibly could have been (and also emotional, i cried a few times), it is kind of what's expected of a 5* read.

How does Elizabeth Strout do it? I became so caught up in Lucy's life that I found it hard to accept the book had come to an end, leaving me needing a few days before starting a new novel. Lucy and William will stay with me for quite some time.

Another brilliantly humane, perspicacious, funny and poignant offering from Strout. This is a Covid novel that will withstand the passage of time. Lucy’s voice and her way of looking at the present is unforgettable. I particularly liked how Strout has woven the realities of lockdown and actual politics her characters deal with into a totally compelling universal story of positive change in adversity. By the sea, not “at sea” finally!

Author Elizabeth Strout imagines Lucy Barton in the pandemic. She’s moved out of New York into a rented house overlooking the sea in Maine with her ex-husband, William. Having loved the Olive Kitteridge books, I couldn’t get on with this title’s predecessor, Oh William! However, I found Lucy by the Sea a different prospect and felt myself immersed in Lucy’s head and story. Strout’s writing style appears effortless, conversational and is very immersive. Nothing much happens in Lucy by the Sea, it’s a story of an everywoman’s pandemic, but I wanted to know how things unfurled with Lucy, William and their daughters. This is a touching, moving book, with a bewildered Lucy attempting to understand Trumpian thoughts and prejudices through real-life happenings, including the George Floyd murder and the storming of the Capitol building.
Thank you to Netgalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4964919264

An unforgettable story. It's beautiful all through, but the closing chapters are just astonishing, transcendent and hope-filled and life-affirming.
Brilliant author!

I'm sure as time goes on, there will be more and more stories that speak of the start of the pandemic, and what lockdown was like. In this story, we get to see it from Lucy Barton's point of view. I haven't read all the Lucy stories, but I did read the last one, so felt I came to this with some knowledge. I think it helps, to know a little already.
Once again, sometimes I really liked Lucy and at others I couldn't stand her. I did keep thinking thank goodness I didn't have to spend my lockdown with her!

Her experiences were very different to mine, and that's fine, but it was hard sometimes to swallow all of her fears and troubles, when she is so utterly priviledged, having been able to move out of New York to live in Maine by the sea, and so whilst I sympathised with her somewhat (she is still grieving her husband, worrying about her daughters, unsure what will happen to her Manhattan flat etc) at the same time I kept thinking she had no financial worries, she was living in a beautiful, safe place right next to the ocean, with no homeschooling, and no online working...

Anyway, it is still impressive how the voice of this character is captured in the writing, and how we really come to know Lucy, and follow her thoughts from one thing to another, even if I didn't always like what she was thinking.

Although her lockdown was a little different, there were still things where I thought 'I felt that too...' I wonder what it would be like to read this in ten or twenty years? At the moment, things still feel a bit too close to be reliving it through a story.

Anyway, this was good, and I read it really quickly as I was just caught up in Lucy's world.

I generally avoid ‘pandemic’ books and yet absolutely devoured this one, reading it was like catching up with an old friend, Lucy Barton makes me smile, laugh, often frustrates me, but always warms my heart.
Another wonderful read from Elizabeth Strout, highly recommended.

I am grateful to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

‘Lucy By The Sea’ is a novel by Elizabeth Strout, once again revisiting characters from her previous books. Readers of Ms Strout will already know several of the major and minor characters. Lucy, the protagonist and narrator of this book, is known from ‘My Name is Lucy Barton’, “Anything is Possible” and more recently ‘Oh William !’.

This new book continues the relationship between Lucy and her ex-husband William; a divorced couple who remain in each others lives as they grow older. ‘Lucy By The Sea’ tells the story of William and Lucy as they quickly depart New York City as the Covid pandemic begins. They rent an isolated house by the sea in a small town in Maine. Lucy expects it to be a relatively short stay but William anticipates a much longer duration. The book tells the story of their experiences during the first year or so of the Covid pandemic. Reflections on life brings both sadness and happiness, relationships change under stress, pleasures are derived from simple, routine activities. This book will resonate with many people who endured a difficult time during the pandemic, alone or with immediate family.

I have loved all of Ms Strouts previous books however this one is my least favourite. I’m disappointed I did not enjoy it as much as her other books. As always, Ms Strout writes with honesty, her prose rich and vivid. Her insights and observations of people are well crafted and conveyed to the reader with quiet sensitivity or sometimes blunt honesty ! One of Lucy’s first observations of their Maine bolthole is “ I hate the smell of other people’s houses”.

However my enjoyment of the book was tempered by the characters. I found it difficult to like or even identify with many of them. William is a sanctimonious smarty-pants, who knows what is best in a pandemic for himself and his family. An enthusiastic stickler for every Covid protocol; wearing face masks out of doors, constant cleaning of clothes and surfaces, the immediate dismissal of anyone with views different to his own. He is a wealthy man, the sort who gifts a NYC apartment to a child as a wedding present ! He is also self-absorbed, tedious, and pompous. I don’t know what Lucy sees in the man to cause her to isolate with him, even for a short period of time.

As for Lucy, I have admired her from previous books. In this one, she comes across as somewhat naive and entitled. For example, she and her daughter decide to boycott Bloomingdales to save the oppressed of the supply-chain world. Lucy, the narrator of the book, refers at least twice to her Cleaning Lady as someone who “helps me with my cleaning”. Well, that is fine Lucy, as long as she just helps and is in no way being exploited !

Does Ms Strout, or her publishers use a Sensitivity Reader ? Perhaps not as the one Gay character in the book is demonised and dismissed as a “Looser”. No reasons are given for maligning this individual whenever he is mentioned. Given an opportunity to help the less well off during Lockdown, Lucy volunteers at a food bank. For one day. Given her upbringing in extreme poverty, I was surprised Lucy did not feel or show more empathy with the situation.

William and Lucy have adult children. They are entitled, liberal, self-absorbed and hypocritical, enjoying an affluent lifestyle, while suffering anguish at global poverty and materialism. Therapists are naturally part of their lives as they encounter problems and difficult situations. One adult daughter decides to return to school, (Yale of course) to re-educate as a Lawyer, in preparation for doing good in society.

Ms Strout is a brilliant writer and a successful author of many books. She will know that many of her readers will identify closely with her characters. What they say, think and do in their lives. The characters in this book may not necessarily resonate with other readers. That is fine. Novels should not be full of bland characters and dull plots, designed not to offend anyone.

I enjoy the way Ms Strout involves characters from previous books. Bob Burgess, whom we came to know from a previous novel ‘The Burgess Boys’ plays a role in this book. Lucy likes him a lot. I do as well. We hear about, but sadly not from, Olive Kitteridge. A couple of small cameos of sorts, when Olive is mentioned. She is one of the more memorable characters in Ms Strout’s books and it made me smile to encounter her once again.

In closing, I am pleased I read this book. Disappointed at some of the overt political and cultural tonality of certain people, events and situations. This is an aspect I’ve not noticed in Ms Strout’s previous books. I would have thought some nuance or understanding of social unrest during the covid pandemic might have been shown by Lucy or Ms Strout. It is difficult to disentangle the two as the character Lucy is a successful New York author and other aspects or her life appear to mirror Ms Strout’s own. Nevertheless, this is a memorable book. The characters and events remaining in my thoughts long after I finished reading.

I hope Ms Strout continues to revisit her characters as she has in this book. I would love to read more of Bob Burgess, Olive Kitteridge and perhaps Lucy’s deceased husband.

Lucy’s ex-husband, William, has brought her to from New York to Maine (familiar to readers from her other series set there, with crossover characters) escape ‘the virus’. We learn early on that the period that follows will be one of enormous change, On the one hand, this is a clear-eyed take on the emerging 'pandemic' genre – but it is much more than that. A deep, heartfelt exploration of family, loss and letting go.

1.5. Sickly and pointless. Not sure what Strout really wanted to gain from this novel other than have Lucy moaning about everything that's happened in recent years, Covid, lockdowns, mask-wearing, the Capitol event, George Floyd, etc. Is she just trying to be 'current'? This is the very reason I also hated Pollard's <i>Delphi</i>; we all lived through it, not that long ago, so what's the point? Nothing new was brought to the table about Lucy Barton or her ex-husband, William. They move to Maine and that's about it. Lots of phone calls, lots of watching the news. Strout even had Lucy's daughter, at one point, say, '"Mom, where have you been? How do you even know it's a man? It could be a woman or a gender-nonconforming individual [...] We don't make <i>assumptions</i> like that anymore."' It just came across as corny and forced. And don't get me started on the lines like, 'We are all in lockdown, all the time. We just don't know it, that's all.' So, if you want to read about every bad event that's happened on the news in the last few years but through the eyes of a now-whiny Lucy Barton, read this when it comes out next month. Be warned though, it's a 300-page waste of time. But thanks to Penguin for the ARC, anyway.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4952423590

Ohh I didn't realize that this book was part of a series. But I read it anyway and thoroughly enjoyed it (I will now go and read the other ones!), it can easily be read as a standalone novel.
Well written and engaging, a quiet and thoughtful account of the pandemic and family ties.

Elizabeth Strout never disappoints, this gentle novel is at essence a love story (in many different forms) set against the backdrop of the pandemic. It brought into focus the way different families dealt with the pandemic, gravitating towards safety in relationships. Thanks NetGalley!

I read this book in 24 hours with my very unwell son asleep in my lap at the emergency department and if I was feeling fragile when I started it, I felt even more fragile when I finished it. It’s quite a reflective book, with notes of sadness and of hope.

In the fourth instalment of the Amgash series, we meet Lucy Barton again. Covid (or “the virus” as it’s referred to in this book) has just hit and Lucy’s ex husband William urges Lucy to leave NYC and decamp to Maine with him to ride out the pandemic in a rural setting. We get to know covid-cautious William very well in this book, as well as delving further into Lucy’s poverty-stricken childhood and meeting some new friends in Maine (Bob Burgess being my favourite). We also explore the relationship Lucy has with her daughters Becka and Chrissy, and their relationship woes.

This is a pandemic novel and it’s a more enjoyable one than say, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. Similar to that book, Lucy by the Sea touches on topical issues of the time including the murder of George Floyd and the January 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. While I liked that the novel was really trying not to be divisive, I felt Lucy’s kinship with the insurrectionists rang a bit hollow.

I still haven’t fully decided how I feel overall about the book but one thing I will say is that it is very distinctly Strout, so if you are a huge fan of her work, you will adore this.

However, if you’ve never read any of her work, you’d be in danger of mistaking or reading this as the ramblings on disparate topics of an old lady in reflective mode. There are lots of Easter eggs in there - Olive Kitteridge features a couple of times, as does her friend Isabelle and other characters from Strout’s earlier novels.

I do feel as though this book will really stay with me though I’m not sure I completely loved it. I can recognise the unique brilliance of Strout, while also not completely gelling with her style at times.

To put it as Strout might:

You see, sometimes you read things. And those things are interesting. Oh boy are they interesting! And you keep reading though you don’t completely feel like it’s your thing. And then you know, you meet so many characters? You skim the surface of their personality and get a glimpse of them. It’s enough to make you want to know more but, oh dear, not always enough to make you fall in love. Oh Lucy!

Sincere thanks to the author, the publisher @vikingbooks and @netgalley for the ARC. Lucy by the Sea will be published in October. As always, this is an honest review.*