Lucy by the Sea

A Novel

By: Elizabeth Strout

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a poignant, pitch-perfect novel about a divorced couple stuck together during lockdown—and the love, loss, despair, and hope that animate us even as the world seems to be falling apart.

“Strout’s understanding of the human condition is capacious.”—NPR

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Time, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, PopSugar, She Reads

With her trademark spare, crystalline prose—a voice infused with “intimate, fragile, desperate humanness” (The Washington Post)—Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea.

Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we’re apart—the pain of a beloved daughter’s suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize

©2022 Elizabeth Strout (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Graceful, deceptively light . . . Lucy’s done the hard work of transformation. May we do the same.”—The New York Times

“Lucy by the Sea has an anecdotal surface that belies a firm underlying structure. It is meant to feel like life—random, surprising, occasionally lit with flashes of larger meaning—but it is art.”—The New Yorker

“No novelist working today has Strout’s extraordinary capacity for radical empathy, for seeing the essence of people beyond reductive categories, for uniting us without sentimentality. I didn’t just love Lucy by the Sea; I needed it. May droves of readers come to feel enlarged, comforted, and genuinely uplifted by Lucy’s story.”—The Boston Globe

Narrator

I had to use speed of 1.2 because of the laborious speech pattern of the reader. A very puff piece of a novel. So disappointing. I’d recommend avoiding this book.

Slow slow slow

Having lived through this pandemic, it is very hard to believe that a NYC WRITER could act so childish as her ex husband carts her to safety. The use of "I did not" "I do not" instead of using contractions adds to the childishness of the writing. Lastly, the narration is SO slow it almost was comical: NO New Yorker could even speak that slowly!!

too much political views

the negative comments ruined the flow of the bittersweet story.
there should be a disclosure that the story is so slanted politicaly.

Slow burning and thoughtful

This book surprised the heck out of me! I didn’t want to like it, or hear anything more about “the pandemic” but started it because it was this month’s pick for the book club I’m in.

It drew me in slowly and quietly and I ended up devouring it in a day and wanting to drive somewhere to live on a craggy coastline for awhile. I just couldn’t put it down. Sweet and poignant and so fitting for the times we are in.
Narration was excellent once I sped it up a bit to 1.2

For Strout fans only

I always get something out of her books but this one not a favorite. I don't know if the character of Lucy merits this many books. Also, I wonder if Covid has become the third rail for novelists.

Too slow for me

I listened to 4 chapters before I realized that this wasn’t going to get more exciting. I felt as if I was listening to someone’s diary. It may appeal to others, but I was disappointed.

Unbelievably boring

Could not get past first five chapters. So incredibly boring I wanted to cry. The positive reviews on the book has got to be a joke

I agree with her sister, she really is selfish and whiny

I’ve read all of the Lucy Barton books and this is the one that I like the least. I know I am never very pleased in the beginning because she always starts out complaining and whining over things and never being very satisfied or happy about anything but then gets a little more generous and open minded as the story progresses but it wasn’t until the very end of the story that she took a little bit broader view and was a little bit more generous and kind hearted.. I just found her to be immature And boring.

How quickly we forget

Just a few years have gone by and yet our “world”
Has changed beyond our imagination. Strout captures our view with a precision that brings clarity to the experience

Pass on this one! I should have read more reviews.

Like other listeners, I had to listen at 1.5 to manage the painfully slow narration.

The narration alone was enough to abandon the book, but I also found it too soon sit through a detailing of COVID quarantine.

I expect the experience to be a part of the conversation, but I really don’t want to relive every painstaking detail of the experience when we are barely getting life back.

This book was even more boring than being locked up in 2020.