My Name is Lucy Barton

I remember reading Elizabeth Stout's book, Olive Kitteridge when it first came out. I liked it, but that's all I remember of it.  Stout's new book, My Name Is Lucy Barton has been receiving good press so when it popped up on my holds list, I was pretty excited.

The book is a quick read.  The frame of the story is that Lucy is hospitalized due to a post-operative infection and her mother comes to see her. What is most interesting in this narrative is what is left unsaid.

I often jokingly say that I have a hard time figuring out what is satire at times, given the times in which we read.  That also holds true with this book. This book examines a bunch of Things That Are Written About including AIDS, abuse, poverty, death. 

But the part that moved me was the examination of what story means. Stout in fact writes, "You will only have one story. You'll write your story in many ways."  I guess it moves me because it reminds me how Hamilton acknowledges the power of your narrative.