By Lena McMillan, Family Support Development Officer
January’s book choice for our group was ‘Lucy by the Sea’ by Elizabeth Strout
Set in March 2020, this story is about Lucy and her ex-husband William’s escape to coastal Maine, at the start of the pandemic. William anticipates the threat of Covid and is happy to leave New York; Lucy cannot see what all the fuss is about and would initially prefer to be at home.
Weeks away turn into months away, as Covid spreads and the severity of the pandemic is understood. Lucy and William share a complicated past involving marriage, children, affairs and betrayal and being together again puts their relationship on a new level. Throughout the book, we also learn the fate of different family members, and friends old and new.
Our Book Group enjoyed a great discussion with this one. The style of writing really split opinions, with some readers loving the simplistic, conversational tone and others hating it.
This was the first read of the group to be rated zero by one reader, who said she found it ‘deplorable’ – most other readers rated it around the six/seven mark, with the highest individual rating being eight out of ten. Overall, this gave ‘Lucy by the Sea’ a rating of 6.2 out of ten – one of our lower scoring reads, although this score doesn’t really reflect the discussion that took place.
During our conversation, we considered William and Lucy’s different understanding of what was happening at the start of the pandemic and reflected on how we had processed the early days ourselves. We also explored many of the relationships talked about in this novel and those of us who enjoyed it said we’d like to go back and read the earlier books in the series, to learn more about Lucy and William and the history of their complex relationship. A lot of time was spent on the main characters: again, opinions were divided, with some readers finding Lucy selfish and self-centred while others saw her vulnerability and felt sorry for her; and some found William controlling while others viewed him as protective and providing security for Lucy. We also talked about Lucy and William’s daughters and the different ways they relate to their parents and spent some time on where we thought the story might go, if another book was to come out.
Some comments from our readers:
‘…not my kind of story…not a fan of the style of writing.’
‘I really liked the style; I thought it conveyed lots about Lucy without describing it in words.’
‘I was disappointed in the ending, it just stopped.’
‘It was an easy read, very relatable.’
‘I didn’t like the title, but I identified with the book. It was very well written, very believable. The complex characters were very well drawn, and the ending was exactly as it should be.’