My Name Is Lucy Barton

This is a gentle little book based on heavy material. Our protagonist is gentle, compassionate Lucy and the book focuses on her yearning for a loving relationship with her mother. While the two women spend time together, we learn that their relationship is very fraught, as we gets hints of Lucy's miserable childhood of poverty and occasional occurrences of abuse. Lucy's stories of growing up trash and the shame it brings and how it forever haunts you, are heartbreaking.

The book contemplates life and family, the inability to share emotions, human's tendency to feel superior to others, a passion for writing and how every author has 1 story, they retell again and again in different colors. I especially loved the scenes that included Lucy's author idol Sarah Payne, who in the literary circle is criticised for a “softness of compassion”, which functions well as a truth/fiction parallel for Lucy and/or Elizabeth Strout (I'd imagine).