"My Name is Lucy Barton" by Elizabeth Strout

It seems almost unbelievable to me that I had not read a book by Elizabeth Strout before now. (Oh, to you, too?) Strout is quite a celebrated author--she even won a Pulitzer!--but she had barely even been on my radar until Sam gave me this book for my birthday last fall. (You remember, when he was looking for authors that wrote books similar to Ann Patchett's?) 

Whereas the characters in Hello Beautiful didn't really hit the mark for me, Lucy Barton and her cohort were SO REAL. Like, how was this not a memoir? How did this story not actually happen to the author? 

I say "story," but this book is definitely not plot-driven. It centers on a period in the main character's life when she experiences an extended illness and her estranged mother comes to sit with her in her hospital room. There's no drama associated with this visit--they spend most of their time having quiet conversations--but there is an underlying tension, echoes of Lucy's childhood of poverty and neglect. 

I believe I have stumbled into a hidden series. The end of this book included an excerpt from Strout's Anything is Possible, where I discovered that the main character from that book is Lucy's cousin. Sounds like Lucy is also in Tell Me Everything and Lucy by the Sea. The William in Oh William! is surely Lucy's first husband. And he grew up on a farm in Maine, which makes me certain that Olive Kitteridge is a family friend. Do I want to get sucked into this universe? I'm sure there are worse things I could be sucked into.