You wonder if Lucy’s medical condition, undiagnosed throughout the novel, might be psychosomatic in another setting, she could be the perfect subject for a Freudian case study on hysteria.
The sense of isolation is palpable and Strout creates a tragic portrayal of a lifetime’s loneliness: “Loneliness was the first flavour I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden in the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.” It is this loneliness, Lucy confides to the reader, that prompted her to become a writer: “Books made me feel less alone… I thought: I will write and people will not feel so alone!” Strout’s lack of sentimentality creates a powerful image of a childhood steeped not just in financial hardship, but in cultural and emotional deprivation: Lucy’s is a childhood devoid of books, magazines, TV, neighbours. The descriptions of Lucy’s formative years are visceral and heartbreaking. Lucy is now a successful writer, but her mother’s presence reignites memories of her childhood – of poverty, abuse and social exclusion: “We were oddities, our family, even in that tiny rural town of Amgash, Illinois.” Unexpectedly, her mother, from whom she has been estranged for years, arrives at her bedside. She is separated from her husband and two daughters, aged five and six, whom she misses desperately.
Lucy Barton has been in hospital for three weeks with an undiagnosed illness after having her appendix removed. The novel – narrated by the protagonist from the vantage point of the future, both with the benefit of hindsight and the unreliability of memory – takes places over five nights in the mid-1980s. Strout’s lack of sentimentality creates an image of a childhood steeped in cultural and emotional deprivation
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