Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Synopsis.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author traces the enduring bond between a divorced couple in a poignant novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any point in life.
Through her careful words and reverberating silences (The New York Times), Elizabeth Strout has long captured readers’ hearts with her spare, exquisite insights on family, relationships, and loss. And never has her perfect attunement to the human condition (Hilary Mantel) been so evident as in these pages, as Strout’s iconic heroine Lucy Barton, of My Name Is Lucy Barton, recounts her complex, tender relationship with William, her first husband–and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidant. Recalling their college years, through the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a decades-long partnership.
A masterful exploration of human empathy, Oh William! captures the joy and pain of watching children grow up and start families of their own; of discovering family secrets, late in life, that rearrange everything we think we know about those closest to us; and the way people live and love, despite the variety of obstacles we face in doing so. And at the heart of this story is the unforgettable, indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who once again offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence. This is the way of life, Lucy says. The many things we do not know until it is too late.
The Review
I have been reading ELIZABETH STROUT ALL WEEKEND!
Actually, I have been reading her since yesterday.
I just finished MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON on Sunday, and OH WILLIAM today!
Wow, it’s been a treat!
And I’m not sure if I love Elizabeth Strouts’ writing or Lucy Barton as a character. It doesn’t really matter.
At this point, I’ll read anything she writes.
If you call it reading, I call it basking.
It might be the descriptions of disparity and of being poor. It might be the quick lines, short chapters, and aha moments at every passage. I’m not sure.
I’m still basking.
OH WILLIAM comes out tomorrow, and I can’t imagine if you’ve read (basked in) Elizabeth Strouts writing before-then I don’t need to convince you to pick this one up.
Ahhhhhhh
Please don’t bother me while I’m in my afterglow!
See you next week!
Thank you to @prhaudio for this wonderful audiobook so that I could continue to listen to the wonderful Kimberly Farr narrate.
And thank you to @netgalley and Random House Publishing for putting this book on my radar!
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