Elizabeth Strout boldly dives into the deep end of who we are and why, in her 2016 novel My Name Is Lucy Barton, surfacing with observations so poignant, they catch in your throat.

The story is narrated by the eponymous Lucy in a flashback to her 9-week hospitalization in New York City, where she has resided all her adult life, with a husband, two daughters, and a successful career as a writer. She explains how she got there – a mysterious illness that took over after a simple procedure to get her appendix out. And though physically confined to her hospital bed, she takes us on a tour of her childhood through conversations with her mother, whom she hasn’t met in years and doesn’t meet again. Over the course of this 5-day visit, mother and daughter discuss events in the lives of people they knew back home in Amgash, Illinois, avoiding any real discussion of their own estranged relationship and the poverty Lucy grew up in.

Strout does an outstanding job of weaving through conversation and recollection, detailing a childhood underscored by financial difficulties and profound loneliness.

'Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.'

With this Lucy establishes the fundamental reason she was drawn to books. The reason she became a writer. And when she’s done explaining, you get a very real taste of what she has been trying to escape her whole life. And also, what she’s been chasing. Of all the things Lucy has been deprived of, it is her mother’s affection that she craves the most.

Strout’s ability to notice the unnoticeable in human beings, and to then describe it so easily, is both remarkable and rare. Lucy is handed this quality, and while her exchanges with her mother are taut and concise, her characterizations of the people she encounters are detailed and revealing. These encounters almost always end up having a profound and lasting effect on Lucy. Whether it’s the author she meets at a clothing store whose creative writing course she later attends, or the kind Jewish doctor whom she never met again but with whom she admits to feeling a deep attachment, Lucy is in constant search for a bond that her mother often denied her. Lying in the hospital bed, listening to her mother’s stories, Lucy confesses how wonderful it is just to hear her speak, no matter what she said, or what she didn’t. There is a quiet grief in her struggle to draw affection from her mother, and in her acceptance of whatever little she is given. This grief is something she acknowledges will never really leave.

'But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can’t even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: This is mine, this is mine, this is mine.'

But there is hope always, represented by the Chrysler building outside her hospital room window. It shines like a beacon, gigantic and out of reach maybe, but always visible. It is no wonder that Lucy often looks out at this building and is calmed by its presence. And it is no coincidence that this building shows up in the story at the same time her mother does. In that moment, she gets another shot to form a meaningful bond. In that moment, she gets to hope again.

Written with a surprising lack of mawkish sentimentality, given the subject, My Name Is Lucy Barton is a gripping portrait of nostalgia, of the impact of poverty on relationships, and the attempt to find a sense of belonging in people and places.

Above all, it is an insightful exploration of childhood and its aftermath.