Her books read like familiar friends: complicated, timeless, achingly human, and compassionate.

There is inherent pleasure in that mystery. Like in any relationship, there are times in reading these books when certain stories demand attention, and there are times when personal moments are concealed or suppressed. It’s a testament to Strout’s clear-minded, direct prose that the reader doesn’t need to strictly follow the plot to empathize with Strout’s characters and their challenges. Truly, it’s entirely possible to read the books out of order and be completely in sync with the world of these characters. This is, in fact, the fourth book in which Lucy, her friends, and family surface, but please don’t call this a series. This is a cathartic and gripping novel that explores the depths of our knowledge of others and the lengths to which we will go in order to save the ones we love. As they muddle through the days and weeks that made up the early days of the pandemic, so do we. It’s from this removed perspective that Strout tosses us together with these individuals who share two grown daughters, several marriages between them, and a lifetime of history. Her ex-husband, William, demands she join him in a rented home in Maine, far from their respective Manhattan apartments. Recent widow Lucy finds herself as we all did in March 2020, wholly unprepared for the pandemic. On the heels of becoming a Booker Prize finalist for her 2021 novel, Oh William!, Elizabeth Strout returns to her iconic character Lucy Barton for her ninth book, Lucy by the Sea, also one of Oprah Daily’s favorite books of the year.

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