My Name Is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout, Random House Books

&quot,#1 NEW YORK TIMES &quot,BESTSELLER A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including &quot,Olive Kitteridge &quot,and&quot, The Burgess Boys, &quot,have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in &quot,My Name Is Lucy Barton, &quot,this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all the one between mother and daughter. Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable. Praise for &quot,My Name Is Lucy Barton&quot, There is not a scintilla of sentimentality in this exquisite novel. Instead, in its careful words and vibrating silences, &quot,My Name Is Lucy Barton&quot, offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to I was so happy. Oh, I was happy simple joy. Claire Messud, &quot,The New York Times Book Review&quot, Spectacular . . . Smart and cagey in every way. It is both a book of withholdings and a book of great openness and wisdom. . . . [Strout] is in supreme and magnificent command of this novel at all times. Lily King, &quot,The Washington Post&quot,&quot,&quot,A short novel about love, particularly the complicated love between mothers and daughters, but also simpler, more sudden bonds . . . It evokes these connections in a style so spare, so pure and so profound the book almost seems to be a kind of scripture or sutra, if a very down-to-earth and unpretentious one. Marion Winik, &quot,Newsday&quot,&quot,&quot,Potent with distilled emotion. Without a hint of self-pity, Strout captures the ache of loneliness we all feel sometimes. &quot,Time&quot, An aching, illuminating look at mother-daughter devotion. &quot,People&quot, A quiet, sublimely merciful contemporary novel about love, yearning, and resilience in a family damaged beyond words. &quot,The Boston Globe&quot, Sensitive, deceptively simple . . . It is Lucy s gentle honesty, complex relationship with her husband, and nuanced response to her mother s shortcomings that make this novel so subtly powerful. . . . [It s] more complex than it first appears, and all the more emotionally persuasive for it. &quot,San Francisco Chronicle&quot, Strout maps the complex terrain of human relationships by focusing on that which is often unspoken and only implied. . . . Apowerful addition to Strout s body of work. &quot,The Seattle Times&quot, Impressionistic and haunting . . . [Strout]reminds us of the power of our stories and our ability to transcend our troubled narratives. &quot,Miami Herald&quot, Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue. Hilary Mantel Magnificent. Ann Patchett&quot,