ManBookering discussion

Discussing My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.

I read this one in April also, I really liked it. But I love Elizabeth Strout's odd characters and relationships. This was not as good as Oliver Kitteridge in my opinion.

Apart from this book which I just read in July and felt it HAD to be on the Man Booker longlist (and perhaps the shortlist as well), I only know of the Sellout and Hot Milk. I'm looking forward to reading all on the longlist. All the books seem to be under 500 pages long and most of them are just about 200 pages long, so unlike last year where the two contending books A Little Life and A Brief History of Seven Killings were quite the hefty tomes to carry around and read on my way to work, I think I'm going to be able to read them all. :-) So happy for that.

Just read this in one sitting and enjoyed it. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was quiet and beautiful. Lucy's narration is so simple; it was unencumbered writing that I haven't encountered in quite a while. I appreciated that, and how Strout was able to tug at my heartstrings. Not a masterpiece, but it had some musings about life that make me see why it was longlisted.

I just finished this one. I really wanted to enjoy it, but unfortunately I couldn't get what all the fuss was about ! There were some pretty paragraphs but I felt that Lucy should have revealed much more about her childhood/marriage than she does in the book. Neither disappointing nor satisfying for me.

I think not revealing much about Lucy's life was the point of the book- we learn why she is estranged with her mother in the most simplistic way - it just is. And I think that is the bigger point of the novel - things just happen to people and you don't need to be overly dramatic about it. It is definitely not a plot-driven novel, and it makes sense to me why it is on the list.

I thought it was fascinating how the author conveyed the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship so clearly without bogging us down with all the messy details. I felt like I didn't need more of an explanation to feel the impact on their lives and relationship. That was the beauty of the novel to me.

This one arrived on my hold list at the library on the day the long list was announced. I read Olive Kitteridge a few years ago and really enjoyed it so I hope I enjoy this one too. I just read the first chapter so far and thought it was nice.

A quiet and elegant book, but for me it lacked those moments you get in such books of insight or profundity. A strong ending where I finally felt like I was getting it, but not enough to redeem it from the rather whimsical middle section.

Why at two points in the book does she feel the need to explain to the reader what she is doing? It felt rather inconsistent with a novel where you assume the reader is going to read between lines.

I find it hard to make up my mind about this book. Some parts I loved, others I thought were too sappy. I enjoyed the structure, though, the sometimes a bit messy, repetitive monologue-style and the way Lucy doubted and corrected her own thoughts and memories.

Finished this in one sitting. Like with Hot Milk I felt no emotional attachment to any of the characters. Saying that I enjoyed the relationships explored and how it was done. It just personally didn't do anything for me.

This book was really short - I read it in one sitting - but it made me more emotional that I'd have expected for its under 300 pages. Loved it and the relationships it portrayed throughout Lucy Barton's life, reminded me a bit of a Whole Life.

My four star review:

My four star review:

I vaguely remember attempting to read 'Olive Kitteridge' back when it won the Pulitzer and finding it dreary and unreadable, and abandoning it after 10 pages, or so. I'm glad I gave Strout another chance with this Booker longlisted nominee, as I found this intriguing and eminently readable (and of the four I've read so far, clearly my favorite). More like a novella (it can be read in literally two hours), I was somewhat expecting all the vague hints and dark forebodings to climax in some unimaginably horrific event that had warped the title character for life ... and was delighted that Strout never does pander to such expectations, and doesn't define exactly WHY Barton is the way she is, but gives enough clues that you can, more or less, guess at the myriad ways she suffered. I might have to give Olive another chance after all!

I can't say I'm going to be running to read another Elizabeth Strout novel. I didn't much appreciate Olive Kitteridge, and the same goes for this one. For me, it's rather forgettable. There were some beautifully written passages in the book, and I do like her writing in general, but ultimately, I feel this one fell flat. When I started the book, I was immediately engaged, but it quickly fizzled out for me. I don't understand the hype at all. I can say, however, that there are not many books that I've read in the past several years written in this style. I think she's effective with it, but I'm not sure I appreciate it. It leaves me unattached and uncaring. Just when I thought she'd go where I thought she'd go, she wouldn't. I found that I kept hoping there would be some tangents or shifts in focus, but then I realized that wasn't the point. I was just left wanting more. So in the end, this one wasn't for me.

*Spoiler: I have given a brief overview of the book along with my review so please don’t read if you don’t like to know about the plot before you read. Happy reading.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
1980’s New York Lucy Barton had gone into the hospital to have a simple appendectomy but she gets a bacterial infection that kept her in the hospital for nine long weeks. Lucy’s husband feeling overwhelmed with working, caring for their two adolescent daughter and overseeing Lucy’s medical condition, calls Lucy’s mom asking her to come and help. Relations with her family, and especially her mother were strained, so her arrival opened a host of childhood memories. . . memories that each had constructed very differently in their minds. More than just a mother daughter reconciliation it goes right to the heart at how we make and convey messages. I liked very much. 4.8

I finished this earlier this evening. Here is my 4.5* review (I really liked it!): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

It is the first Strout I have read and I love the way she can say things by not saying them. Definitely close to being my favourite of the 10 long listed books I have read.

Neil, we should definitely be on the MB jury together, it would be so much fun trying to find a book we both like

Britta wrote: "Neil, we should definitely be on the MB jury together, it would be so much fun trying to find a book we both like "

Ha! That is funny Britta. It is so interesting how we all connect with different books. I find that influences who I follow on goodreads too. I have certain friends who I follow because we have similar tastes but others who have very different preferences. Thanks for making me laugh.

Britta, that would be a lot of fun! Maybe not for the waiting public, but we'd enjoy trying to pick 13 books we could agree on! I reckon those 13 books would be amazing, though!

Neil wrote: "Britta, that would be a lot of fun! Maybe not for the waiting public, but we'd enjoy trying to pick 13 books we could agree on! I reckon those 13 books would be amazing, though!"

Exactly!!

I'm not sure if anyone has read or heard the following, but I wanted to share a brief interview with the judges (Amanda Foreman (Chair) and Abdulrazak Gurnah) on why books on the longlist made the longlist.

Elizabeth Strout (US) - My Name Is Lucy Barton (Viking)
“a subtle, intriguing book, deeply felt and quietly disturbing”
Foreman: There was a universal appreciation for the quiet beauty of this novel and in particular the writing, which is so sustained. It covers the unreliable narration of a woman, who’s utterly self-made. She comes from an amazingly poor and deprived background. She’s managed to escape and craft herself anew, and the reader has to figure out what is true and what is simply a figment of imagination or wish-fulfillment.

This one was actually the first longlisted book I read this year and my first Elizabeth Strout aswell.

This is a quite book, which creeps up on you. With flashbacks and flashforwards more and more about Lucy's life enfolds. There are many themes being incorporated like (war related) trauma, poverty and class, family relations. Lucy Barton is an unreliable narrator, but still you feel for her. I loved the complicated relationships in this book, the obvious impossibility to speak about certain things and Lucy's attempts to become a writer and thus write the unspeakable. Strout also weaves in many historic events, which works for the most part, but the moment she incorparated 9/11 I thought it was too much/ a bit clumsy. I for once really enjoyed this one.

I really wanted to like this book. It is a good book, but there was nothing in it that struck me as new or different or particularly insightful.
I don't really understand her wanting her mother around. I have a very strained relationship with my mother, and I can assure you, if I were sick and in hospital, having her around would just make things so much worse. I have friends who also estranged or in other ways not close to their mothers, and they all say the same thing.

She has contributed to the romanticisation of the mother-daughter relationship. The notion that children and parents will always love each other and always want each other's love is false and damaging.

I loved this book. Picked it off the shelf last night and sat after breakfast this morning and read until finished.

What sealed it for me was what Lucy was told by the author Sarah Payne on the last day of the workshop (p.107): "Never ever defend your work. This is a story about love, you know that. This is a story of a man who has been tortured every day of his life for things he did in the war. This is the story of a wife who stayed with him, because most wives did in that generation, and she comes to her daughter's hospital room and talks compulsively about everyone's marriage going bad, and she doesn't even know it, doesn't even know that's what she's doing. This is a story about a mother who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly. But if you find yourself protecting anyone as you write this piece, remember this: You're not doing it right."

One of the most stunning works I've read in a long time. From knowing the exterior of Olive Kitteridge, we move with great pain and care to the interior of Lucy Barton. Form follows function here, where we see acting on Lucy the quiet abuse of her childhood, the inability to tell an entire story start to finish because her memories are denied her, the silence in the face of half-truths and lies, the need to make the implacable parent happy. It never goes away and Lucy barely exists in her own right because of what's been done to her and what's been denied her. I found her ability to write an absolute miracle, and Sarah Payne is one of the finest supporting characters I've read in a contemporary book, drawn in few, swift, and bold strokes.

I cannot say enough about how the structure of this book created for me the fractured yet tenacious spirit of Lucy Barton. Its title may be the only sentence she can speak without recrimination at her failure to be a child good enough to make her parents' lives worth living. Which is why Lucy will always speak love as a second language, except with the good doctor who kissed his closed fingers over her.

I thought this book was flawless.

This was a brilliant book for me, one that sets a very high standard. I agree with Ann Loretta, it is simply flawless. I also agree with Maxwell about the unencumbered writing.

*Spoiler alert*

'My name is Lucy Barton' is not a portrait of the main character; it is a glimpse of her through others, her relations with others and her reactions and thoughts related to other people's stories. It is the story of Lucy Barton's self discovery, the loving kindness of strangers, New York City, the love of a Mother and abusive relationships.

There was clearly abuse in her childhood home. Lucy identifies with the story raised by a stranger of the mad husband/father masturbating openly around the home. She also remembers the truck and there is a fleeting memory of her father's warm hand on the back of her head. All these memories unfold naturally through her interaction with her mother, the writer Sarah Payne and her husband.

There are mysteries left untold. What of the red mark on the leg? How recent was it? Was husband William also abusive? Or was the Mother's concern for just a marriage falling apart in other ways? I need to re-read as this book as so many subtle layers.

So far my head says she talks of two major traumas NYC suffered, the AIDS crisis in the 80s and then 9/11; Lucy Barton also seems to have had two major traumas, but like Sarah Payne, although she is trying to reveal she is also holding back. NB they were both scared of the cat!

5 Stars