Oh William!

Elizabeth Strout has a very distinctive writing “voice”. It's intimate, brutally honest, but not always sweetness and light. Inevitably her characters seems more alive than most any other author I can think of, as though you're living inside their heads. Many readers I know insist Olive Ketteridge must be a real person, that's how spot on she is in Strout's novels. Now add Lucy Barton to that list, because in this new novel, Strout brings back the protagonist from My Name is Lucy Barton and fleshes her out at a time in her life when she's recently widowed and dealing with rebooting her life as an older woman. We learn more about her backstory, her first husband William, his enigmatic now deceased mother Catherine, the grown daughters they had together, and most of all, Lucy herself as she and William take a road trip to Maine to explore his family origins. The insights into this long-ago first marriage are heartbreaking and poignant, revealing a deep-seated love hidden beneath years of recriminations and heartache.

Not much “happens” in the novel if you're the type of reader who craves plot, but if you long for an intimate character-driven story, this one is for you. There are plain-spoken nuggets of wisdom hidden every few pages that make you stop reading to contemplate your own life choices, your own desires and relationships, and most of all, the roads and maybe detours that have brought you to where you are today.

Highly recommended.