“Why are we here?” I asked William. “Tell me again.” And he said, “Because this is where Lois Bubar’s husband came from. Don’t you listen?” And I thought, Oh William. Jesus, William. This is what I thought.
The third volume in Elizabeth Strout’s Amgash Series, Oh William! follows My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible, and while I may not have found this to be quite as impactful as the first two in the series, I did find it gentle and thoughtful and a lovely way to spend a couple of afternoons. We’re back in Lucy Barton’s head, and what a fraught place that is to be as Lucy joins her first husband William — still each other’s best and oldest friend despite many years divorced — as William navigates a pair of disruptive circumstances; and whether they are travelling together or picking up the phone to call the other the moment something significant happens in either of their lives, Lucy and William are frequently confronted with hard pearls of truth about themselves (as offered by the person who knows them best in the world) or they are forced to revisit and reevaluate memories from the past. Everything about this novel feels true to life — particularly the unedited storytelling style that Lucy employs as she attempts to explain what she means at every moment (and I’d imagine it takes a lot of editing to make that voice seem so natural and spontaneous) — and I thoroughly enjoyed this read. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Please try to understand this:
I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me. I feel invisible, is what I mean. But I mean it in the deepest way. It is very hard to explain. And I cannot explain it except to say — oh, I don’t know what to say! Truly, it is as if I do not exist, I guess is the closest thing I can say. I mean I do not exist in the world. It could be as simple as the fact that we had no mirrors in our house when I was growing up except for a very small one high above the bathroom sink. I really do not know what I mean, except to say that on some very fundamental level, I feel invisible in the world.
I quoted this passage because it demonstrates what I mean by Lucy’s “unedited” storytelling style — for a successful author, Lucy seems to really struggle to express herself in words and I was constantly struck by the thought, “Just who is she telling all this to?” — but I also like it because as a successful author, Lucy is repeatedly being recognised in her travels — asked to sign some books in a library, seeing her novels on a stranger’s bookshelf, having details from her memoir quoted back to her — I can’t imagine anyone feeling less invisible (which makes for a nice irony). Even as she approaches seventy years old, despite William calling her “self-absorbed”, Lucy isn’t terribly self-aware.
But when I think Oh William!, don’t I mean Oh Lucy! too? Don’t I mean Oh Everyone, Oh dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves!
Over the course of this novel, Lucy and William will each gain some self-awareness (thanks to moments of exasperated honesty, always followed by gentler words), and while Lucy’s memories of their marriage make it clear that it wasn’t good for either of them, it’s the action in the present that explains why they’re still so close — when William needs to take a trip to his past, who else would he take along but the only one who was there with him? Interesting things do happen in this book, but it’s not really about the plot: the voice, the relationship, the growing self-knowledge, these all add up to a satisfying reading experience that made me pleased to have spent a bit more time with Lucy Barton. Rounding up to four stars.
The 2022 Booker Shortlist
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka (the winner)
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
The Trees by Percival Everett
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
I found I didn't really have the interest to read the rest of this year's longlist, but I did read:
The Colony by Audrey Magee (my favourite overall)
After Sappho by Naomi Alderman
Nightcrawling by Lelia Mottley
