Memoirous

My Name is Lucy Barton , Elizabeth Strout My Name is Lucy Barton was something I picked on a whim off the library shelf. I have not read her other works, namely Olive Kitteridge , which won the Pulitzer prize. The story is set up almost as vignettes that bounce back and forth between the past, the “present”, and then the “present” turns into past reflection. It is a book about memories—and possibly mistakes. I say possibly as I don’t want to rob it of broader themes. A daughter, bedridden in a hospital with an unknown ailment, becomes the basis for her mother’s unexpected arrival. And, for 5 days the mother sits vigil and the two begin to revisit the past. A complicated one, but nothing out of the ordinary. There is no GREAT revelation; this is no The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls). We have here in a fairly slim volume, the story of a family making ends meet in rural Illinois. We also have the story of the families around this family, the surrounding community. It is a b...