How did this story bubble up for you? Where did it start?ĮS: My Name Is Lucy Barton took me by surprise. And whatever you do, be at the downtown library this Thursday, January 21, at 6:15, when Strout is here and church convenes again.

But this new book is my favorite Strout novel by far.” Or trust NPR or The New York Times or any of the many spectacular reviews or fellow book-lovers who have declared it a masterpiece. And take it from the much better words of Ann Patchett, who said “A lot of people would have thought that Elizabeth Strout could never write a book better than Olive Kitteridge. If I’m doing an inadequate job explaining why you should read this book, accept my apologies, please. And that’s what makes me sad, that a beautiful and true line comes to be used so often that it takes on the superficial sound of a bumper sticker.” “I have sometimes been sad that Tennessee Williams wrote that line for Blanche DuBois, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.’ Many of us have been saved many times by the kindness of strangers, but after a while it sounds trite, like a bumper sticker. It’s hard to find the words to describe something made out of someone else’s far superior words, you know? Speaking of which, here’s one of my favorite observations from its pages: Likewise, I’m not sure calling this book “poetic” or “beautiful” or “quietly devastating” quite captures it. I feel as if telling you the plot - that it’s a series of memories of childhood and meditations on adulthood that take place during a brief hospital visit between a grown woman, Lucy Barton, and her mother - isn’t enough. It had been a while since I’d been inside a church, I admit, and as I sat in that pew among hundreds (thousands?) of other book-lovers, listening to these two brilliant, kind, funny people discuss how they create their stories, I thought, Now this is a church I would attend regularly: The Church of The Elizabeths.Īs far as I know, Strout has no plans to become a preacher, so the closest thing we can get to a sermon is her new book, My Name Is Lucy Barton.

She and another of my favorite writers, Elizabeth McCracken, were discussing the art of storytelling in the sanctuary of a Methodist church, the only venue large enough to hold everyone who had come to see them. The first time I met Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout in person was last fall, at the Texas Book Festival.

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