Book Review: Elizabeth Strout's Lucy by the Sea is a trip worth taking
Fans of Elizabeth Strout (and they are legion) have been spoiled by the US author’s prolific output of late.
- Lucy by the Sea
- Elizabeth Strout
- Viking, €15.99
Fans of Elizabeth Strout (and they are legion) have been spoiled by the US author’s prolific output of late. The US novelist has written five novels in six years and hot on the heels of the Booker-nominated Oh, William! which was released last year, comes Lucy by the Sea.
It features Lucy Barton and her former husband William, who, like the inimitable Olive Kitteridge, form part of a cast of characters that recur in Strout’s other books.
Strout is particularly adept at drawing compassionate yet clear-eyed portrayals of older women, facing up to loss, regret and the inexorable march of time. In Lucy by the Sea, however, such concerns become subsumed by something more urgently perilous.
While to all intents and purposes a Covid novel, the dreaded virus itself is never mentioned by name.
Pandemic-related novels aren’t for everyone — for many readers the trauma of related events is still far too close to gain any insight or vicarious thrill from reading about it.
Having said that, Strout is one of the few authors one would trust to deal with such a challenging proposition.
In Lucy by the Sea, William, a scientist, recognises the danger the virus poses early on and persuades an initially reluctant Lucy to leave her home and their two adult daughters in New York and go with him to Maine, where he has rented a house.
Strout adroitly captures the dawning sense of portentousness as the initial strangeness of sanitising, masking, and distancing becomes an everyday reality.
Lucy is a well-known novelist, whose childhood of abject poverty was recounted in previous books.
This book, however, couldn’t be further away from such humble beginnings, with Lucy’s lockdown experience very different from that of the healthcare workers and service providers marooned in a Covid-ravaged New York.
In Maine, Lucy and William are as protected as possible, going for walks along the coast, making tense trips to the supermarket and having outdoor and distanced chats with friends.
While she does “check” her privilege, Lucy’s innate aloofness, which previously worked as a coping mechanism, in this context makes it difficult to connect with her as a character.
And this is a novel all about connection — between family, friends and lovers — and the complications that come with, or in the case of Covid, without it.
Strout is particularly good on the primal maternal bond, as Lucy feels increasingly bereft at the lack of physical contact with her daughters — her joy when they are reunited jumps off the page.
At the same time, she is thrown into close quarters with her former husband, whom she is drawn to and irritated by in equal measure.
It is clear to the reader that William’s concern for Lucy is motivated by more than kindness but her perception is clouded on many fronts, not least the fact that she is grieving the death of the man she remarried.
There are glancing references to the political turmoil that accompanied lockdown in the US — Trump’s election is covered in four short and sharp lines and the attack on the Capitol gets a brief mention — but the concerns here are overwhelmingly personal.
Never far away are the echoes of the past and Lucy’s childhood trauma, as Covid brings the recriminations and regrets around her family relationships to the surface.
The conservational tone and style of Lucy’s narrative can sometimes be grating but overriding this quibble is Strout’s gift of understated epiphany, her deceptively simple prose drawing the reader in, then deftly delivering a profound truth or detail.
As a whole, Lucy by the Sea isn’t one of Strout’s best works — it doesn’t reach the heights of the Pulitzer prizewinner Olive Kitteridge or My Name is Lucy Barton — but even when she’s not at full throttle, it is a trip that is still well worth taking.
