My Name Is Lucy Barton cover art

My Name Is Lucy Barton

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge

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My Name Is Lucy Barton

By: Elizabeth Strout
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
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About this listen

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audibook edition of My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, read by Kimberly Farr.

A mother comes to visit her daughter in hospital after having not seen her in many years. Her unexpected visit forces Lucy to confront her past, uncovering long-buried memories of a profoundly impoverished childhood; and her present, as the façade of her new life in New York begins to crumble, awakening her to the reality of her faltering marriage and her unsteady journey towards becoming a writer.

From Lucy's hospital bed, we are drawn ever more deeply into the emotional complexity of family life, the inescapable power of the past, and the memories - however painful - that bind a family together.

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction

Critic Reviews

A novel of shining integrity and humour (Alice Munro on 'Amy and Isabelle')
As perfect a novel as you could ever read (Evening Standard on 'Olive Kitteridge')
My God - she is fun to read (Richard Bausch)
As ambitious as Philip Roth's American Pastoral but more intimate in tone. (Time Magazine on 'The Burgess Boys')
Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force (The New Yorker on 'Olive Kitteridge')
Strout's prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity. (The New Yorker on 'The Burgess Boys')
One of those rare, invigorating books that take an apparently familiar world and peer into it with ruthless intimacy, revealing a strange and startling place. (The New York Times Book Review on 'Amy and Isabelle')
Strout's greatly anticipated second novel . . . is an answered prayer. (Vanity Fair on 'Abide With Me')
Elizabeth Strout writes beautifully about the compromises and small joys of what we might call mature people. Delicate, nuanced, insightful, and profoundly moving, Olive Kitteridge provides exactly the pleasures and the depths of feeling that I crave when I read fiction (Ann Packer on 'Olive Kitteridge')
All stars
Most relevant
Lovely writing. Concise story lovely characters. not more can be wanted or needed ffrom a novel.

Strout at her best

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Elizabeth Stroud has written an intimate book with such strength that it will stay with me for many years. I'm am already on to Olive Kitteridge.

Brilliant book and brilliant performance

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Allusive, magical, deeply felt prose. Plain spoken, seemingly no-nonsense words, spoken squarely pull the heart out of you.

Beautifully rich

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Loved the structure of the novel
The challenges in life & the understanding of the importance of love & family however destructive & painful, understanding & empathy & unknowns important themes

Living a Life

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I enjoyed this book for the most part. Short and well written with astute character analysis, but after falling in love with Olive Kettering and Olive Again this book dimmed a little bit. I felt I didn't really know Lucy so well by the end. Oh, William, which I will be reading might shed some light.

Good, but not as good as Olive books.

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