A pandemic novel, this one begins with something a lot of people did in early 2020–make a quick decision to ‘shelter in place’ with friends or family to wait things out for a few weeks. Of course no one knew, at the time, that it would become so much longer than that!
William convinces his ex-wife Lucy to leave her New York City apartment and travel with him to a safer location. He picks her up and they drive to a house on the rocky shores of Maine. Not just fans of the Lucy Barton/William series will realise the tension in that decision. Living quarantined in isolation together during a pandemic is not something a lot of divorced couples would choose to do! This book brought back ‘allthethings’ and ‘allthefeels’ of lockdown for me which I found reflective.
Lucy and William are endlessly fascinating characters. The Amgash series books can all be stand-alone reads, but they are richer read in series.
Strout’s writing is deceptively simple and spare. With few words she can evoke a great deal of depth and emotion. She captures nuance in relationship so well. Her writing is calming and compelling at the same time. Tremendous insight into human connection is unsentimentally conveyed through ordinary events. I can’t put her books down, she just draws me right in. Strout is a skilful master of her craft and is a good example of “Hard writing makes easy reading.” (Wallace Stegner)
She also sneaks in some characters from her other books. Bob Burgess and Olive Kitteridge make guest appearances in this one, and I loved that so much. I’ve not read The Burgess Boys yet, but Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again have definitely been high on my list of all time favourites. Olive is so very different from Lucy. 🙂
Here’s a list of the first three books in the series, with links to those posts:
Joanne's Reading Blog 
We should all pray daily that Elizabeth Strout keeps writing!!
Isn’t that the truth! Keep the books coming Elizabeth Strout! I actually have two backlist titles of hers that I haven’t read yet, so I’m going to do that soon. Have you read all of them?
I have read all of them–and can imagine re-reading each one.
I loved this book. The writing is so clear and concise ( minimalist in a way) and the characters so well drawn. This is the first description that I have read about COVID which really captured the experience of the pandemic.
I loved this book. Writing is so clear and concise (minimalist in a way) and the characters so well drawn. This is the first description of the experience of living with Covid that really captures some of the isolation and disruptive qualities of living through the pandemic.
Glad to hear you liked the book, it really is the best description I’ve read of the pandemic so far too, and Strout is a master at capturing the atmosphere and relationship nuance…You might like the earlier ones about Lucy and William, you can read them as flashbacks!