I don’t know the first time, I don’t know the last time. I don’t know in numbers how many times I was locked in the truck. The dirt streaked windows, the tilt of the windshield, the grime of the dashboard, the smell of the diesel gas and rotting apples, and dogs. At times it comes to me with a clarity I find astonishing. As she sorts through her memories, Lucy tries to put the best possible spin on her past and her parents’ treatment of her, but because the reader can be objective, no such struggle is required to identify the abuse: From her memories the reader learns that Lucy has endured a childhood of grinding poverty and parental abuse.

Because Lucy is the narrator of the story, the reader knows that Lucy wants something positive to develop from their time together, but this same desire is not readily apparent in her mother’s conversations.Īs a result of her illness Lucy requires a lot of rest, and it is during these times of rest that Lucy reminisces about her childhood. There is a continuous strain in the conversations between the two women during the five days of her mother’s stay. Lucy is both happy and alarmed to see her mother the ambivalence that she exhibits toward her keeps the reader off balance and unsure of Lucy and her mother’s relationship. Īs the story begins, Lucy has been alone for much of her hospital stay, and so is very surprised one morning to see her mother sitting in a chair at the end of her bed. This disquieting undertone, which I believe is created in part by the many short, staccato-like phrases used in the narrative, permeates the story. Told in spare and splendid first-person style, My Name Is Lucy Barton has a sinister undertone that was absent from Olive Kitteridge, her Pulitzer Prize winning book. What the reader learns about Lucy’s family during her mother’s visit develops into a disturbing tale about the elusive and complex nature of family love. While her daughters are still quite young, Lucy is taken ill and spends 9 weeks in the hospital during which time her estranged mother comes to stay with her at the request of Lucy’s husband, William. My Name Is Lucy Barton (Random House 2016) by the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Strout, is a touching and troubling story concerning a young married woman, Lucy Barton, who lives in New York in the 1980’s with her husband and two daughters.

Lucy barton