I'm not sure why I keep reading Elizabeth Strout's books, but I do. Her latest, My Name is Lucy Barton, is about a woman who lives in New York with her husband and two young daughters and is in the hospital for nine weeks when her mother, who she hasn't seen or spoken to in years, shows up from her childhood home in Agmash, llinois.
The book is made up of Lucy's reflections on their conversations during this week. Strout's writing is deceptively simple and sparse, it gets right to the heart of the matter with little fuss. I have always felt compelled to read her books, yet I always feel mildly depressed by the end. Her characters are rarely happy and not fully formed enough to care about. A well written, yet unsatisfying read.
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