For those of you that haven't or couldn't attend book club lately, we'll be publishing the previous months' discussion questions here. I hope eventually to post discussion questions for all of the books we've covered since I took over a couple of years ago, maybe even beyond. It will take a while. Until then, we will be posting discussion questions a couple of times a month. Here are the questions from November's title, My Name Is Lucy Barton. We hope these questions spark discussions of your own.
My Name Is Lucy Barton
by Elizabeth Strout
Summary:
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable. -- Back Cover
Elizabeth Strout is the American author best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Olive Kitteridge, as well as her dynamic and descriptive characterizations.
Discussion Questions
Lucy’s husband asked her mother to visit her in the hospital, and paid for her trip. Do you think that was a gesture of love on his part?
What role does the gossip Lucy and her mother share play in the book?
Do you think Lucy blames her mother for the more painful parts of her childhood? Could her mother have done better?
Describe each of the two women, Lucy and her mother. What is their relationship with one another, and how does the relationship change during the course of the novel?
Why is Lucy’s mother unable to be emotionally open to her daughter? How different is Lucy’s relationship with her own daughters?
What happened to Lucy that estranged her from her parents? When did you first begin to suspect, then to fully understand Lucy’s demons?
WWII and the Nazis are themes that profoundly affect Lucy’s father (and hence her whole family), Lucy’s marriage to her first husband, and even her dreams. Discuss.
What is the state of Lucy’s marriage? How do the couple’s divergent upbringings, one impoverished and the other comfortable, affect their relationship? Talk about the role that class plays in this book.
Lucy expresses great love for her doctor. How would you describe that love?
Lucy’s friend Jeremy told her she needed to be “ruthless as a writer.” Did she take his advice? How?
Why did Lucy keep returning again and again to see the marble statue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
How has the poverty of Lucy’s childhood shaped her life and her work?
How did you feel, later in the book, when Lucy’s dying mother tells her, “I need you to leave” and the father who brutalized her says, “What a good girl you’ve always been”?
What does living in New York City mean for Lucy? Do you think she feels at home in New York?
What did Sarah Payne mean, when she said to Lucy: “We only have one story”?
What does Strout’s book suggest about the pull of family and the power of redemption? What makes forgiveness possible? Do all things deserve forgiveness?
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