My Name Is Lucy Barton cover art

My Name Is Lucy Barton

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge

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About this listen

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audibook edition of My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, read by Kimberly Farr.

A mother comes to visit her daughter in hospital after having not seen her in many years. Her unexpected visit forces Lucy to confront her past, uncovering long-buried memories of a profoundly impoverished childhood; and her present, as the façade of her new life in New York begins to crumble, awakening her to the reality of her faltering marriage and her unsteady journey towards becoming a writer.

From Lucy's hospital bed, we are drawn ever more deeply into the emotional complexity of family life, the inescapable power of the past, and the memories - however painful - that bind a family together.

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

A novel of shining integrity and humour (Alice Munro on 'Amy and Isabelle')
As perfect a novel as you could ever read (Evening Standard on 'Olive Kitteridge')
My God - she is fun to read (Richard Bausch)
As ambitious as Philip Roth's American Pastoral but more intimate in tone. (Time Magazine on 'The Burgess Boys')
Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force (The New Yorker on 'Olive Kitteridge')
Strout's prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity. (The New Yorker on 'The Burgess Boys')
One of those rare, invigorating books that take an apparently familiar world and peer into it with ruthless intimacy, revealing a strange and startling place. (The New York Times Book Review on 'Amy and Isabelle')
Strout's greatly anticipated second novel . . . is an answered prayer. (Vanity Fair on 'Abide With Me')
Elizabeth Strout writes beautifully about the compromises and small joys of what we might call mature people. Delicate, nuanced, insightful, and profoundly moving, Olive Kitteridge provides exactly the pleasures and the depths of feeling that I crave when I read fiction (Ann Packer on 'Olive Kitteridge')
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I loved it from start to finish, I couldn't stop listening until it was finished. Will be recommending this for my next book club and to anyone who will listen!

A great pleasure!

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I am a big fan of this author's take on 'small lives' Wonderfully narrated.

Wonderful storytelling

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The story develops somewhat purposelessly and leaves the listener wanting for more until the end.

The characters are relatable and realistic but the detail is missing. Often this seems like a first draft rather than a finished book.

The narration is awful, I only managed to get through it on 1.25 speed otherwise this would have lulled me into a deep sleep...

Have not been able to make sense of this

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Shame the heroine is incapable of a normal feeling Everything is absolutely awful or bonethrillingly wonderful Shame the author has a limited vocabulary Also shame the narrator exacerbates the deficiency

Good story spoiled by lack of vocabulary

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Not much of a story - nothing much happens other than musings about life but easy to listen to. Narration excellent

Beautifully meandering

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