Friday, June 28, 2024

Beginning ~ with her first husband

Beginning

I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William.

William has lately been through some very sad events  many of us have  but I would like to mention them, it feels almost a compulstion, he is seventy-one years old now.

Oh William! (Book 3 of 5) ~ by Elizabeth Strout, 2021, fiction, 248 pages (in the large print edition)

Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read.  William, she confesses, has always been a mystery to me.  Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years.  They just are. 

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 — one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us.  There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children.  On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together — even after we’ve grown apart.

1 comment:

Literary Feline said...

I have wanted to try something by Elizabeth Strout for awhile now. I like the opening you shared and it has me wanting to know more. Thank you for sharing!