Elizabeth Strout’s new novel, Oh William! is a return to the characters of Lucy Barton and her first husband, William, from My Name Is Lucy Barton. I decided to go back and re-read the first novel, then straight through the new novel, and discuss them as one. I recommend you read them in this manner, too. You will get much more out of both novels this way.

Elizabeth Strout is a very character-driven novelist. She is greatly interested in people, their life experiences, points of view, motivations, the choices they make, and how they handle the consequences of all of this. Strout is also a spare and careful writer, giving us just as much detail as we need to get the gist, forcing the reader to bring their own feelings and intuition to the story. Her characters are genuine, and feel like friends or family long after the novel has ended. You will feel as though their lives continue beyond the page.

Lucy Barton is herself a novelist, was married to William, a professor in parasitology, and had two daughters, living in Manhattan then Brooklyn. In My Name Is Lucy Barton, Lucy has an appendectomy, but then struggles for several weeks with a mysterious infection, remaining in the hospital. Since William is phobic of hospitals, and is quite busy with work and their young daughters, he asks Lucy’s mother to spend time with Lucy in the hospital. It is during these days of their visit that we get to know Lucy, all told from her point of view, as she listens to her mother’s stories of the people they knew in their farming community in Illinois. We get to hear Lucy’s point of view of her childhood, her family, and her early married life with William. It is obvious that Lucy suffered greatly from the great poverty of their family, the ostracism from the town and fellow students at school, her mother’s abusiveness and lack of love, and her father’s bizarre behavior, as a sufferer of trauma from his combat service in World War II. She was the one family member to escape their home life, get a scholarship to college, and make a successful life for herself, something her brother and sister were not able to do for themselves. Readers will learn so much from Lucy: how poverty can mark people for life, as they have experiences others cannot relate to, and gaps in life experience as well. Personally, I can greatly relate to this, and while my circumstances were not as deprived as Lucy’s, I can deeply understand her perspective, and can appreciate how exactly correct Strout is in depicting this.

In Oh William!, we learn much more about her first husband, his mother, and go much deeper into his marriage with Lucy and their daughters. This story is also told from Lucy’s viewpoint, that of a keen observer, yet kind hearted person. For Lucy is a happy, loving person, naturally looking for the best in others, but sensitive to selfishness and unkindness in others. William learns of a one year old daughter that his mother left behind in Maine, when she ran away with a returning German POW who had worked on her husband’s potato farm in Maine. He returns to the United States after the war, and arranges to meet her in Massachusetts. William is their child, although his father dies when he is fourteen. William becomes the focus of his mother’s world, and he finds it so suffocating that he goes to graduate school in Chicago to get away from her, where he meets and marries Lucy. Many years later, after his mother’s death and long after their divorce, William learns of this half sister, and he asks Lucy to embark on a journey to Maine, where he will decide whether to meet the woman.

Lucy learns much more about her complex mother-in-law, her former husband, and why their relationships evolved as they did. The phrase Oh William! takes on several different colors and shades of meaning during their adventure. It is enjoyable to see the world through Lucy’s eyes, a generous, kind person, who nonetheless sees things with great clarity. We watch her watching William, as he makes discoveries about his life that become difficult, almost impossibly painful to absorb. He was made to feel so special, privileged and entitled all of his life, that he cannot summon the empathy needed to understand his mother and her complete story in its fullness. We come to understand Lucy more deeply, as she does herself.

I think you can tell that I love Elizabeth Strout’s writing a great deal. A new novel from her is a real treat, and is to be savored. You can also read my discussion of her novel Olive Kitteridge (https://www.margueritereads.com/home/olive-kitteridge) and read the sequel, Olive, Again. This is an excellent novelist, not to be missed. Your book club will enjoy any of her works. Highly recommended.