I've been silent on here for so long I'm almost ashamed to show my face. I've started several posts but abandoned them for whatever reason. Anyway I'm breaking my silence to tell you about a book I've just reviewed on Shiny New Books, and which will undoubtedly be on my list of my favourite books of 2021. I've loved Elizabeth Strout since I first discovered her novels back in 2017 and have reviewed three of them on Shiny. This one belongs to what seems to be a trilogy - the first two being My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible. In the unlikely event that you're not familiar with these, Lucy is a writer who lives in New York. That's a long way from her childhood home in Amgash Illinois, where she was brought up in household of terrible poverty, deprivation and abuse. I hasten to say, though, that she never writes bitterly about the conditions, or about her parents, despite the often unnamed horror to which she was subjected.
In this latest novel, Lucy has reached the age of 63. She's very successful. She has two married daughters who she loves very much, and she has managed to maintain a relationship of sorts with their father, her long-ago ex-husband William Gerhardt. Oh William! tells the story of an episode in their lives -William has discovered he has a half-sister who lives in Maine, and persuades Lucy to accompany him on a sort of road trip.
But the novel does much more than just tell the story of their journey. What it's really about is the relationship between these two people, which has deepened into a profound, if not uncomplicated, friendship. Here's what I said in the review:
As for William, the father of her daughters, to whom she was married for twenty years, she sometimes hates him, sometimes pities him, sometimes loves him. But their relationship is undoubtedly a deep one, probably a better friendship than they had during their marriage, since William was serially unfaithful. Now, however, he confides his frequent night terrors to Lucy, telling her that he gets through them by reminding himself that he can always call her, no matter what the hour. It’s Lucy he calls when his third wife walks out on him without warning, shockingly removing furniture and rugs but leaving behind the expensive vase William had given her for Christmas. And when Lucy’s beloved second husband dies, it’s William who she calls first and who comes round to comfort and sit with her.
This is a beautiful, moving novel, written in Strout's signature simple prose - short sentences, uncomplicated vocabulary, lots of exclamation marks. The prose may be simple, but the feelings it describes are not. If you'd like to read my review, here's the link.
