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Lucy Barton Series

This series delves deeply into the human psyche, exploring the complexities of relationships, particularly those between mothers and daughters. The narrative follows the protagonist's journey as she confronts traumatic memories of a difficult childhood and seeks her own identity. Through introspective and poignant storytelling, the series examines themes of forgiveness, love, and the enduring search for truth in life and art.

Lucy by the Sea
Oh William! :
Anything Is Possible
My Name is Lucy Barton

Recommended Reading Order

  1. 1

    My Name is Lucy Barton

    • 240 pages
    • 9 hours of reading
    3.8(3161)Add rating

    #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the tender relationship between mother and daughter in this “spectacular” (The Washington Post) novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys. “An aching, illuminating look at mother-daughter devotion.”—People A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, The Guardian Slate, BookPage, LibraryReads, Kirkus Reviews 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.

    My Name is Lucy Barton
  2. 2

    Anything Is Possible

    • 254 pages
    • 9 hours of reading
    3.7(1760)Add rating

    Short story collection Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are two sisters: one trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother’s happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence.

    Anything Is Possible
  3. 3

    Oh William! :

    3.8(58842)Add rating

    Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret

    Oh William! :
  4. 4

    Lucy by the Sea

    4.2(1002)Add rating

    In March 2020 Lucy's ex-husband William pleads with her to leave New York and escape to a coastal house he has rented in Maine. Lucy reluctantly agrees, leaving the washing-up in the sink, expecting to be back in a week or two. Weeks turn into months, and it's just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the sea. Rich with empathy and a searing clarity, Lucy by the Sea evokes the fragility and uncertainty of the recent past, as well as the possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this miraculous novel are the deep human connections that sustain us, even as the world seems to be falling apart.

    Lucy by the Sea