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Lucy by the Sea: A Novel Hardcover – September 20, 2022
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“Strout’s understanding of the human condition is capacious.”—NPR
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Time, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, PopSugar, She Reads
With her trademark spare, crystalline prose—a voice infused with “intimate, fragile, desperate humanness” (The Washington Post)—Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.
As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea.
Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we’re apart—the pain of a beloved daughter’s suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.
Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House
- Publication dateSeptember 20, 2022
- Dimensions5.79 x 1.07 x 8.52 inches
- ISBN-100593446062
- ISBN-13978-0593446065
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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From the Publisher


Editorial Reviews
Review
“Heartwarming as well as somber . . . Although simple on the surface, Strout’s new novel manages, like her others, to encompass love and friendship, joy and anxiety, grief and grievances, loneliness and shame—and a troubling sense of growing unrest and division in America. . . . Strout’s understanding of the human condition is capacious.”—NPR
“Rendered in Strout’s graceful, deceptively light prose . . . Lucy’s done the hard work of transformation. May we do the same.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Like all of Strout’s novels, Lucy by the Sea has an anecdotal surface that belies a firm underlying structure. It is meant to feel like life—random, surprising, occasionally lit with flashes of larger meaning—but it is art.”—The New Yorker
“The novel inhabits an emotionally rich terrain, where past failures shine light on future possibilities, where strength comes from vulnerability and where chance challenges choices. . . . Strout is a natural and generous writer, letting feeling and intuition lead her craft.”—Associated Press
“Deeply moving and quietly funny.”—The New York Times (100 Notable Books of 2022)
“Strout fans will delight in the appearance of beloved characters from previous novels, including Olive Kitteridge and Isabelle . . . as they struggle and hope—together but in isolation.”—The Washington Post (50 Notable Works of Fiction)
“Through her empathetic hand, Strout reveals what was lost in this turbulent time, but also—via her discoveries about marriage, family, and love—what Lucy gained.”—Time
“Poised and moving . . . It is only in the steady hands of Strout, whose prose has an uncanny, plainspoken elegance, that you will want to relive those early months of wiping down groceries and social isolation. . . . This is a slim, beautifully controlled book that bursts with emotion.”—Vogue
“The Pulitzer Prize–winning Portland author reprises her Lucy Barton character to convert the grimmest period in our recent past into something triumphant and hopeful.”—Portland Press Herald
“A quietly profound book about grief and loss—oh, so much loss!—but also kindness, generosity and resilience.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Strout excels at distilling complex human emotions—fear of failure, regret that we never measured up— into something familiar and understandable.”—BookTrib
“Strout follows up Oh William! with a captivating entry in the Lucy Barton series. . . . What emerges is a prime testament to the characters’ resilience. With Lucy Barton, Strout continues to draw from a deep well.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
i
Like many others, I did not see it coming.
But William is a scientist, and he saw it coming; he saw it sooner than I did, is what I mean.
William is my first husband; we were married for twenty years and we have been divorced for about that long as well. We are friendly, I would see him intermittently; we both were living in New York City, where we came when we first married. But because my (second) husband had died and his (third) wife had left him, I had seen him more this past year.
About the time his third wife left him, William found out that he had a half-sister in Maine; he found it out on an ancestry website. He had always thought he was an only child, so this was a tremendous surprise for him, and he asked me to go up to Maine for two days with him to find her, and we did, but the woman—her name is Lois Bubar— Well, I met her but she did not want to meet William, and this made him feel very terrible. Also, on that trip to Maine we found out things about William’s mother that absolutely dismayed him. They dismayed me as well.
His mother had come from unbelievable poverty, it turned out, even worse than the circumstances I had come from.
The point is that two months after our little trip to Maine, William asked me to go to Grand Cayman with him, which is where we had gone with his mother, Catherine, many, many years before, and when our girls were small we would go there with them and with her too. The day he came over to my apartment to ask me to go with him to Grand Cayman, he had shaved off his huge mustache and also cut his full white hair very short—and only later did I realize this must have been a result of Lois Bubar’s not wanting to see him plus everything he had learned about his mother. He was seventy-one years old then, but he, kind of, I think, must have been plunged into some sort of midlife crisis, or older man crisis, with the loss of his much younger wife moving out and taking their ten-year-old daughter, and then his half-sister’s not wanting to see him and his finding out that his mother had not been who he’d thought she had been.
So I did that: I went to Grand Cayman with him for three days in early October.
And it was odd, but nice. We had separate rooms, and we were kind to each other. William seemed more reticent than usual, and it was strange for me to see him without his mustache. But there were times when he threw his head back and really laughed. There was a politeness to us that was consistent; so it was a little strange, but nice.
But when we got back to New York, I missed him. And I missed David, my second husband, who had died.
I really missed them both, David especially. My apartment was so quiet!
•
I am a novelist and I had a book coming out that fall, and so after our trip to Grand Cayman I had a great deal of traveling to do around the country and I did it; this was in late October. I was also scheduled to go to Italy and Germany in the beginning of March, but in early December—it was kind of odd—I just decided I was not going to go to those places. I never cancel book tours and the publishers were not happy, but I was not going to go. As March approached someone said, “Good thing you didn’t go to Italy, they’re having that virus.” And that’s when I noticed it. I think that was the first time. I did not really think about it ever coming to New York.
But William did.
ii
It turned out that the first week in March, William had called our daughters, Chrissy and Becka, and asked—begged—them to leave the city; they both lived in Brooklyn. “And don’t tell your mother yet, but please do this. I will deal with her.” And so they hadn’t told me. Which is interesting because I feel that I am close to our girls, I would have said closer to them than William is. But they listened to him. Chrissy’s husband, Michael, who is in finance, really listened, and he and Chrissy made arrangements to go to Connecticut to stay in the house of Michael’s parents—his parents were in Florida, so Chrissy and Michael could stay in their house—but Becka balked, saying that her husband did not want to leave the city. Both girls said they wanted me to know what was going on, and their father said to them, “I’ll take care of your mother, I promise, but get out of the city now.”
A week later William called me and told me this, and I was not frightened but I was confused. “They’re actually leaving?” I said, meaning Chrissy and Michael, and William said yes. “Everyone is going to be working from home soon,” he said, and again I did not really understand it. He added, “Michael has asthma, so he should be especially careful.”
I said, “He doesn’t have terrible asthma, though,” and William paused and then said, “Okay, Lucy.”
Then he told me that his old friend Jerry had the virus and was on a ventilator. Jerry’s wife also had the virus, but she was at home. “Oh Pill, I’m so sorry!” I said, yet I still did not get it, the importance of what was happening.
It’s odd how the mind does not take in anything until it can.
The next day William called and said that Jerry had died. “Lucy, let me get you out of this city. You’re not young, and you’re scrawny and you never exercise. You’re at risk. So let me pick you up and we’ll go.” He added, “Just for a few weeks.”
“But what about Jerry’s funeral?” I asked.
William said, “There will be no funeral, Lucy. We’re in a—a mess.”
“Where out of the city?” I asked.
“Out of the city,” he said.
I told him I had appointments, I was supposed to see my accountant, and I was supposed to get my hair done. William said I should call my accountant and get an earlier appointment and to cancel my hair and to be ready to leave with him in two days.
I could not believe that Jerry had died. I mean that sincerely, I could not believe it. I had not seen Jerry in many years, and maybe that was why I was having trouble. But that Jerry had died: I could not get it into my head. He was one of the first people to die of the virus in New York City; I did not know that at the time.
But I got an earlier appointment with my accountant, and also for my hair, and when I went to my accountant’s office I took the small elevator up: It always stops at every floor, he is on the fifteenth floor, and people squeeze in holding their paper coffee cups and then look down at their shoes until they get off, floor by floor. My accountant is a large, burly man, my age exactly, and we have always loved each other; it may sound a little strange, because we do not socialize, but he is one of my favorite people in a way, he has been so deeply kind to me over these many years. When I walked into his office he said “Safe distance,” waving to me, and so I understood then that we would not hug as we always do. He joked about the virus, but I could tell he was nervous about it. When we were through with our meeting he said, “Why don’t you go down the freight elevator, I can show you where it is. You’ll be alone on it.” I was surprised and I said, Oh no, there was no need for that. He waited a moment, and then he said, “Okay. Bye-bye, Lucy B,” blowing me kisses, and I went down in the regular elevator to the street. “See you at the end of the year,” I said to him; I remember saying that. And then I took the subway downtown to get my hair done.
I have never liked the woman who colors my hair—I had adored the first woman who colored it for years, but she moved to California—and the woman who took over, I just never liked her. And I did not like her that day. She was young and had a small child, and a new boyfriend, and I understood that day that she did not like her child, she was cold, and I thought: I am never coming back to you.
I do remember thinking that.
When I got home to my building I met a man in the elevator who said he had just gone to the gym on the second floor but the gym was closed. He seemed surprised about this. “Because of the virus,” he said.
•
William called me that night and said, “Lucy, I’m picking you up tomorrow morning and we’re leaving.”
It was a strange thing; I mean that I was not alarmed but I was still kind of surprised at his insistence. “But where are we going?” I asked.
And he said, “The coast of Maine.”
“Maine?” I said. “Are you kidding? We’re going back to Maine?”
“I’ll explain,” he said. “Just please get yourself ready.”
Product details
- Publisher : Random House (September 20, 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593446062
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593446065
- Item Weight : 15.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.79 x 1.07 x 8.52 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #116,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,085 in Family Saga Fiction
- #2,738 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #8,415 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Elizabeth Strout is the author of the New York Times bestseller Olive Kitteridge, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; the national bestseller Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in London. She lives in Maine and New York City.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers praise the writing style as concise and well-written. They find the stories interesting, relatable, and complex. The book is described as heartwarming and filled with family emotions. Readers appreciate the insightful and thought-provoking content, including life lessons. However, some feel the pace is too slow and boring.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers appreciate the author's writing style. They find the paragraphs concise and well-written. The phrasing is beautiful, and the simple rhetoric is affecting. Readers appreciate the thoughtful and reflective writing style that accomplishes wonders with character development. They describe the book as interesting, interwoven, and complex.
"...In sparse prose, Strout captures the discombobulating effect of not knowing when the weirdness will end...." Read more
"Stouts writing always pulls me in and it was fascinating to read about pandemic times...." Read more
"...She is thoughtful, reflective, and so relatable...." Read more
"...writing style of the book itself was also so flat, composed of just basic simplistic sentences, devoid of detailed descriptions etc...." Read more
Customers find the stories interesting and complex. They describe the memoir as believable and relatable. The storyline is superb, with realistic characters. Many readers find it fascinating to read about pandemic times and how we all live in lockdown.
"Stouts writing always pulls me in and it was fascinating to read about pandemic times...." Read more
"...She is thoughtful, reflective, and so relatable...." Read more
"She has such appeal and sense about life! I love every one of her novels! Lucy is a great character" Read more
"Real, living, worrying,and vulnerable people, fumbling through Life,utterly relatable, such a treat!!! Loved every individual story!..." Read more
Customers find the book heartwarming. They appreciate the author's eloquent descriptions of universal feelings and relationships. The story touches on thoughts, feelings, and life decisions. Readers also mention that the book is filled with family emotions, secrets, and growth.
"...It was so realistic to engage in the marital and other personal problems that Lucy's adult children experienced during the lockdown...." Read more
"...She remains traumatized from her childhood but her ability to love is remarkable...." Read more
"...In this story you can explore your relationships and how our lives are impacted by isolation...." Read more
"...Strout makes Lucy very real and somehow gives the reader an experience of knowing her and living next to her and exploring her trying to figure out..." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and a good read. They appreciate the life lessons and self-introspection it provides. The writing is described as perceptive and illuminates the psyche of Americans in the current pandemic.
"...Strout is not only an extraordinary writer but an unusually perceptive philosopher." Read more
"...The patterns in life, the overcoming of adversities and hardships, how to float even if you can’t swim...." Read more
"I think this may be Strout's finest novel. It is quite profound. It takes place during the onset of Covid and the beginning year or so...." Read more
"...so flat, composed of just basic simplistic sentences, devoid of detailed descriptions etc. that I had to stop reading for my own sanity...." Read more
Customers find the book simple yet eloquent in its description of universal feelings. They say the author captures well the confusion, fear, and dumbfounded reaction we all had. The book is described as casual yet meaningful, with deep questions and answers from the nice mother.
"...So many deep questions and answers from the nice mother...." Read more
"To be transported back to the first year of the pandemic. The simplicity and depth of this story captures the gut freezing fear of the time and..." Read more
"...She wonders without answers. She breathes humanity, always conflicted, into her characters...." Read more
"...I since have bought many of her other books. Easy, entertaining reads with interesting characters." Read more
Customers have different views on the character development. Some find the characters realistic and engaging, describing them as memorable. Others feel the characters lack personality and are insipid or lacking depth.
"...I have read almost everything Strout has written and love the Lucy Barton character. She is thoughtful, reflective, and so relatable...." Read more
"...I love every one of her novels! Lucy is a great character" Read more
"...I grew to really dislike Lucy as a character and found that she became increasingly more annoying and small minded in each book...." Read more
"...Of course, Lucy was still portrayed as the empathetic character she has always been, and I appreciated that...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's read pace. Some find it fast and enjoyable, while others find it slow and boring.
"It’s a fast read, with simple sentences, clearly written, and the journey is complex...." Read more
"...The other two books were slow-ish (for one she is stuck in a hospital room for many weeks) but I hung in there because I had already bought this..." Read more
"...Despite being about the pandemic this book was a fast and easy read...." Read more
"...Our experience with the pandemic was unique to us. This story was a very fast read also." Read more
Customers dislike the book's dullness and slow pace. They find it unengaging and a waste of time. The characters are described as unlikable and complain about everything.
"...And it was not a ex-library book as described. Waste of money ." Read more
"...Yes, it appears so. Her character, Lucy, is childish, incredibly boorish and naive. She is not even remotely well fleshed out as a character...." Read more
"...I miss the richness of her earlier work. It's just not a pleasure for me to read anymore...." Read more
"...us all but the protagonist was not really very likeable and complains about everything and reconnects with her ex husband. Just doesn’t work for me...." Read more
Reviews with images

Another home run for Elizabeth Strout
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2025With the pandemic in the rear-view mirror, my memories of lock down and social isolation have blurred. Reading Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout brought the strangeness back with clarity. In sparse prose, Strout captures the discombobulating effect of not knowing when the weirdness will end. We’re thrown together with people we may not choose to be with, and separated from those we do. We’re stuck at home and dreaming of escape, or far from home and longing for its familiar comforts. Authors, myself included (see my Amazon author page https://www.amazon.com/author/asewovenwords), are typically advised to wait before writing about current events, allowing temporal distancing to give us the wisdom of hindsight. Yet, there is also something gained by writing as events are unfolding. Given that Strout’s novel was published in 2022, she wrote it “in the moment.” And, given her literary gifts, she nails it. Lucy by the Sea blends visceral immersion with detached observation, replicating the surreal qualities of the pandemic itself. Perusing it now, readers cannot only recollect those days, but also prepare for the next pandemic that will assail us in the foreseeable future. I choose to be with Strout.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2024Stouts writing always pulls me in and it was fascinating to read about pandemic times. It was such a bad and good time all at once and the book took me through it
- Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2023After seeing Elizabeth Strout live at Eckerd College and hearing Andre Dubus interview her, I gained greater insight into her writing process in formulating her latest great novel, <em>Lucy By the Sea</em>. I have read almost everything Strout has written and love the Lucy Barton character. She is thoughtful, reflective, and so relatable. Strout emphasized in her interview that she loves to write about ordinary people and does that masterfully.
In this novel, Lucy lockdowns with her ex-husband William in 2020. William insists that she leave New York City, and his friend Bob Burgess, a character from another Stout novel, arranges for them to stay in a house in Maine so that they would be safe. Of course, in Maine, they face some anti-New York sentiments from neighbors, but they also connect with old friends and meet some new ones. Connecting with people during this time of isolation was an essential theme of this pandemic novel. Connections included adult children and other relatives, including William's half-sister whom readers met in Strout's previous book, <em>Oh William</em>.
Elizabeth Strout includes much darkness, grief, and loss as Lucy experiences myriad emotions while watching terrifying pandemic newscasts about her home, New York City, during her sojourn in Maine. Strout says that she illuminates life's truth through her characters, and she certainly does that skillfully. It was so realistic to engage in the marital and other personal problems that Lucy's adult children experienced during the lockdown. Lucy's desire to protect them as a mother and still let them make adult decisions without her interference is palpable to a reader. Through the annals of daily life, Lucy's friendship with her ex-husband grows exponentially, and acceptance of each other's habits and quibbles dominate much of the story.
I loved the way Lucy and William's conversations mimicked the conversations we were all having during the first months of the COVID pandemic. Fear of the unknown was a prevalent topic. The political unrest that overtook the USA during this time is covered realistically. The conflicting feelings, sadness, and mercurial feelings I experienced while reading this book provided a reliving of the angst discussed on nightly newscasts and Zoom calls with friends.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2022I bought this book because I saw it on a book list and was intrigued by the pandemic plot and how someone else may have experienced it. After receipt I realized it is the third book in series about a character named Lucy Barton, so I borrowed the previous two books from the library and read them both. I kept hoping I would come to like Lucy or what she made of her life after breaking free of a childhood of poverty .... or at least be intrigued or interested by other characters in the book or plot developments. The other two books were slow-ish (for one she is stuck in a hospital room for many weeks) but I hung in there because I had already bought this book in hardcover and wanted it all to make sense. Finally I was ready to read Lucy By The Sea and honestly after a few chapters I gave up and put it outside in my little lending library for someone more patient than I am to read. I grew to really dislike Lucy as a character and found that she became increasingly more annoying and small minded in each book. While she theoretically had an interesting personal history and career (as a writer living in NYC), she somehow managed to be a total dud. Overall the writing style of the book itself was also so flat, composed of just basic simplistic sentences, devoid of detailed descriptions etc. that I had to stop reading for my own sanity. I thought the concept of quarantining with ones ex husband during the pandemic would be an interesting concept - but not in this book. I'm not sure how so many people adored it or even consider the writing to be worthy of a prize winning writer but clearly I am in the minority on this one. I suggest borrowing it from a library rather than investing in it.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2025She has such appeal and sense about life! I love every one of her novels! Lucy is a great character
Top reviews from other countries
- Margret ComackReviewed in Canada on January 30, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars A very personal account of life during the pandemic
I love the almost rambling style of writing that kind takes you into the writers mind as she struggles to cope with the challenges of isolation from family and friends during the Covid 19 pandemic. the book offers an inside look to one family's story of loss of friends, fear of being together and the loneliness that results. It is a candid perspective on how life alters when confronted with such enormous restriction and uncertainty. A compelling read, highly recommended.
- Linda Russell ArcherReviewed in Mexico on November 5, 2022
4.0 out of 5 stars Elizabeth Strout draws us back into a recent past we perhaps prefer to forget
It was strange reading a novel about living through the pandemic. It somehow made something very recent, seem long ago, and something that has, for various reasons, so quickly been pushed into the past, as strangely present again.
-
Punita B.Reviewed in Spain on December 28, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantástico
Me gusta mucho esta escritora
- OneclearwayReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars The further adventures of Lucy Barton
This is the continuation of the (non) events of Lucy Barton’s life. Engagingly written, with the characters dealing with the pandemic. A good read though I would read the earlier book first.
Elizabeth Strout has created a world set in New York and New England which is engaging gentle and a good read.
-
RenataReviewed in Germany on March 16, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Titel des Buches „ Lucy by the Sea“von Elizabeth Strout
Mir hat besonders gefallen, dass das Buch in der Originalsprache so schnell lieferbar war. Strout- Fan war ich schon vorher, und dieser neue
Roman, der in den USA währed der Corona- Pandemie spielt, hat mir gut gefallen!