My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout, read by Kimberly Farr. Random House Audio, 4 hrs., $30 ISBN 978-0-307-96711-4
Author Strout and reader Farr have produced a masterly fusion of material that could easily have become maudlin but never does. It is a simple, yet deep depiction of the fierce love and intense pain of a mother-daughter relationship. At the request of her unavailable husband, Lucy’s mother, whom she has not seen for many years, comes to sit beside the bed of her hospitalized daughter. Lucy speaks openly of the poverty and shame of her childhood, and the family dynamics emerge beneath the dialogue and in the silences between the lines. Listeners reel with Lucy’s shifting moods, her intense love for her own two daughters, her loneliness, and her growing insight into her family dynamics. Strout has written so beautifully of the inseparable bond between mother and daughter that listeners will be compelled to contemplate their own childhood in a new light. A Random House hardcover. (Jan.)
Details
Reviewed on: 02/29/2016
Genre: Audio
Compact Disc - 978-1-5247-5472-3
Hardcover - 208 pages - 978-1-4000-6769-5
Library Binding - 500 pages - 978-1-62899-849-8
Other - 978-0-8129-8907-6
Paperback - 240 pages - 978-0-8129-7952-7
Paperback - 978-957-32-8865-7
Paperback - 248 pages - 978-0-241-24878-2
Pre-Recorded Audio Player - 978-1-4676-2228-8
