Publishers Weekly
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Despite its slim length, Strout's (The Burgess Boys) tender and moving novel should be read slowly, to savor the depths beneath what at first seems a simple story of a mother-daughter reconciliation. Lucy Barton is shocked when her mother, from whom she's been estranged for years, flies from tiny Amgash, Ill., to be at Lucy's hospital bedside in New York. Convalescing from a postsurgery infection, Lucy is tentative about making conversation, gently inquiring about people back home while avoiding the real reason why there's been no contact with her parents. Strout develops the story in short chapters in which the reader intuits the emotional complexity of Lucy's life as she reveals long-buried memories of an isolated, profoundly impoverished childhood and the sexual secrets, "the knowledge of darkness," that shrouded her life. Though her mother calls her Wizzle, an endearing childhood name that implies warmth and closeness, she is unable to tell Lucy that she loves her. Running counter to the memories of her harsh, stoic upbringing is Lucy's anguish at missing her own two daughters, waiting for her at home. Lucy also reflects on other cruelties of life in New York City, specifically the scourge of AIDS (the setting is the 1980s) and the underlying troubles of her marriage. Her narrative voice is restrained yet expressive. This masterly novel's message, made clear in the moving denouement, is that sometimes in order to express love, one has to forgive. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Literary Agency. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal
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In a book worthy of her Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, Strout again writes empathically as she explores core issues of class and the parent-child relationship. Lucy Barton, a writer like her creator, though her writing is used mostly to clarify her life, has been hospitalized with a mysterious disease she cannot shake. Her husband calls the mother Lucy hasn't seen in years and asks her to come and sit with her daughter, and as Lucy tries to connect with her dutiful but distant parent, we learn bits and pieces of a sorrowful childhood. The family's harsh poverty left Lucy forever a scorned outsider, a feeling she can't shake any more than her lingering illness, and her parents' mindless abuse further scarred her. It's bad enough that Lucy was often locked in the truck because the family didn't have anywhere else to park her, but not even to remember such casual cruelty? As she grows up and grows away from her family, Lucy finds a decent husband (though watch him) and has two lovely daughters, yet she is forever aware that she "comes from nothing," as her mother-in-law lets slip at the wedding. Verdict Throughout, readers are constantly alerted to the numerous human divides that define our society. Highly recommended.-Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly
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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.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal
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Many years earlier, Lucy Barton spent two months in a hospital after a routine appendectomy; no one ever figured out what was wrong. She wakes one morning to find her mother sitting on her bed, arrived in Manhattan from their rural Illinois hometown. Too many years have passed since mother and daughter have even been in the same room, and yet their conversations work hard to avoid the personal, gossiping and laughing about friends and neighbors rather than sharing intimacies between themselves. The very air in Lucy's room becomes achingly dense with all that goes unsaid-both women so desperately lonely, both so heavy with love and need for each other. Strout's (Olive Kitteridge) latest title is a haunting portrait of an artist as a young woman and what she fled, endured, and hoped for on her remarkable journey toward becoming a writer. Kimberly Farr's deliberate, measured narration gives Lucy dignity and grace, never succumbing to a hint of self-pity. The unflinching strength of Strout's writing finds equal fortitude in Farr's lucid, thoughtful voice. VERDICT With Strout's exalted reputation, library patrons will be queuing impatiently to get to know Lucy Barton. Watch for Lucy on upcoming literary prize short lists and best-of compilations. ["In a book worthy of her Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive -Kitteridge, Strout again writes empathically as she explores core issues of class and the parent-child relationship": LJ Xpress Reviews 12/18/15 starred review of the Random hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, -Washington, DC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning Strout (The Burgess Boys, 2013, etc.), a short, stark novel about the ways we break and maintain the bonds of family. The eponymous narrator looks back to the mid-1980s, when she goes into the hospital for an appendix removal and succumbs to a mysterious fever that keeps her there for nine weeks. The possible threat to her life brings Lucy's mother, from whom she has been estranged for years, to her bedsidebut not the father whose World War II-related trauma is largely responsible for clever Lucy's fleeing her impoverished family for college and life as a writer. She marries a man from a comfortable background who can't ever quite quiet her demons; his efforts to bridge the gap created by their wildly different upbringings occupy some of the novel's saddest pages. As in Olive Kittredge (2008), Strout peels back layers of denial and self-protective brusqueness to reveal the love that Lucy's mother feels but cannot express. In fewer than 200 intense, dense pages, she considers class prejudice, the shame that poverty brings, the AIDS epidemic, and the healing powersand the limitsof art. Most of all, this is a story of mothers and daughters: Lucy's ambivalent feelings for the mother who failed to protect her are matched by her own guilt for leaving the father of her two girls, who have never entirely forgiven her. Later sections, in which 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," are almost unbearably moving, with their pained recognition that the mistakes we make are both irreparable and subject to repentance. The book does feel a bit abbreviated, but that's only because the characters and ideas are so compelling we want to hear more from the author who has limned them so sensitively. Fiction with the condensed power of poetry: Strout deepens her mastery with each new work, and her psychological acuity has never required improvement. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

*Starred Review* Lucy Barton recalls her months-long stay in the hospital after suffering complications during a routine appendectomy. Her husband, overwhelmed with job and child-care responsibilities, summons Lucy's mother to stay with her, though they have long been estranged. Within the confines of her hospital room, Lucy and her mother seek to find common ground, gossiping about the neighbors in the small, rural town of Amgash, Illinois, where Lucy was raised. In this way, they avoid talking about the central event of Lucy's life, her impoverished childhood. Obliquely, the harsh details are revealed: Lucy was frequently hungry, dirty, and terrorized by her abusive father. She felt isolated, ashamed, and fearful, feelings that still surface in adulthood. It seems a small miracle that she escaped to college, got married, had children, and became a writer while her siblings remained mired in dysfunction. She never confronts her mother about the fact that she failed to protect Lucy; indeed, though they seem incapable of expressing it, their love for each other is palpable. In a compact novel brimming with insight and emotion, Strout relays with great tenderness and sadness the way family relationships can both make and break us. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Anticipation will be high for a new novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2015 Booklist