A review by donnawr1
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

5.0

What a lovely book once again by Elizabeth Strout. Lucy Barton is my favorite of her characters and so it was just wonderful to see how she's doing now that she's 63. The story is about her relationship with her ex-husband, William, shortly after the death of her beloved second husband. Lucy and William have remained friends with a special bond that comes from knowing the intimacies of the other, without having to be with them all the time. They can be brutally honest with each other and each listens and absorbs what the other has to say. This is particularly important at this time when William, aged 70, starts to lose the commanding presence he has had in all aspects of his life previous. I love how Lucy fills in details from previous novels, like her hospitalization was due to appendicitis and what her siblings were up to. We learn more about her feelings about her mother as well, ripened with time after she became a mother of adult girls. I also love that there is a better perspective on why she left William in the first place and that she has a close relationship with her daughters. Strout knows how to find little details about her characters that make them so vivid, even though the writing feels sparse overall. It is with a feeling of content fullness that I finished this book and can't wait to read Lucy By The Sea as the most recent story of Lucy. Even though these books became a series, they never feel like a series when you read them.