![]() ![]() I had just returned to Sydney from Prague because my mother had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. ![]() I was looking for a distracting read or maybe some kind of help – a Westfield is a strange place to go looking for salvation, I know, but having grown up here I also know we’re lucky to even have a small branch of Dymocks inside a shopping centre. A couple of years ago I randomly picked up My Name is Lucy Barton in the Dymocks in Westfield Parramatta, which had the particular ambience that all Westfields seem to have – noisy, shiny, and this time, with Christmas decorations beginning to appear. The dedication brought me back to the first time I encountered Strout. Lucy, also from Maine but now living in New York, appeared in Strout’s short story collection Anything is Possible and in the novel My Name is Lucy Barton. So reads one of the dedications in Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Oh William! Strout is probably best known for her creation of Olive Kitteridge, a recurring character in the interconnected short story collections Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again, both set in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine but I first discovered her work though another recurring character, Lucy Barton. ![]() And to anyone who needs it – this is for you. ![]()
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