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My Name Is Lucy Barton

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My Name Is Lucy Barton

By: Elizabeth Strout
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE & THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

An exquisite story of mothers and daughters from the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge

Lucy is recovering from an operation in a New York hospital when she wakes to find her estranged mother sitting by her bed. They have not seen one another in years. As they talk Lucy finds herself recalling her troubled rural childhood and how it was she eventually arrived in the big city, got married and had children. But this unexpected visit leaves her doubting the life she's made: wondering what is lost and what has yet to be found.

The story continues in Anything is Possible, Oh William! and Lucy by the Sea, available to read now!

'A terrific writer' Zadie Smith

'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own' Hilary Mantel

'So good it gave me goosebumps. One of the best writers in America' Sunday Times

© Elizabeth Strout 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2016

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

Continue the series
Lucy by the Sea cover art
Lucy by the Sea By: Elizabeth Strout

Critic reviews

A novel of shining integrity and humour (Alice Munro on 'Amy and Isabelle')
As perfect a novel as you could ever read (Evening Standard on 'Olive Kitteridge')
My God - she is fun to read (Richard Bausch)
As ambitious as Philip Roth's American Pastoral but more intimate in tone. (Time Magazine on 'The Burgess Boys')
Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force (The New Yorker on 'Olive Kitteridge')
Strout's prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity. (The New Yorker on 'The Burgess Boys')
One of those rare, invigorating books that take an apparently familiar world and peer into it with ruthless intimacy, revealing a strange and startling place. (The New York Times Book Review on 'Amy and Isabelle')
Strout's greatly anticipated second novel . . . is an answered prayer. (Vanity Fair on 'Abide With Me')
Elizabeth Strout writes beautifully about the compromises and small joys of what we might call mature people. Delicate, nuanced, insightful, and profoundly moving, Olive Kitteridge provides exactly the pleasures and the depths of feeling that I crave when I read fiction (Ann Packer on 'Olive Kitteridge')
All stars
Most relevant
and Elizabeth Strout tells her story so gently yet powerfully: complex, insightful and painfully loving. It amazes me.

'All life amazes me,' says Lucy Barton. <br />

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Interesting seeing inside someone's head. Ordinary yet individual - everyone's map of the world is so different.

story of a life?

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You have to be in the mood for this. The unusual narrative style in which the narrator constantly qualifies what she says in an attempt to report honestly and accurately can become rather wearing. It is also not particularly cheering. But it’s compelling, (although it wonders off a bit in the middle) and insightful and sad. The ending felt a bit abrupt.

Not exactly enjoyable but …

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So gentle and very enjoyable. I loved listening to every minute.
The narrator is first class.

Beautifully written and read

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Wish I’d read all the reviews first. I really don’t understand the praise heaped on this book. It started well enough but then the story seems to have been curtailed into short summaries and I had to check whether I had an abridged version by mistake.
I found the narrator rather annoying.

Disappointing

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