And although Lucy initially forgave him, ultimately this did at least lead to one of those rare moments when she made a choice: “One day I picked up the phone and I called a mattress store.” With possessions in a garbage bag, she walked out to a rented apartment.īut was it really a choice or is there a larger pattern forming around William? Because early on in this novel, his third and most recent wife also walks out, simply moving to Greenwich Village and leaving a note.
Their marriage foundered on the other women he was “doing” while still married to Lucy. Of course, what William has followed, most assiduously, is his libido. Otherwise we’re following something – we don’t know what it is but we follow it… We just do – we just do, Lucy.” Lucy’s lack of self-unawareness remains the abiding drive of these novels – coupled with her desire to understand more Meanwhile, William, Lucy’s first husband and the central case study of this new instalment, tells her, mid-argument: “Once every so often – at the most – I think someone actually chooses something. Throughout the novel, Lucy launches questions at herself to which she can find no answer. Indeed, Lucy’s lack of self-awareness remains the abiding drive of these novels, coupled with her desire to understand more: about her own choices (few), about the failure of others to choose well and about the never-ceasing clash of desire and obligation. In this volume, when she recalls her surprise at a therapist speedily diagnosing PTSD, part of the moment’s power is that it comes as no surprise at all to the reader.
The life of Lucy Barton remains the crucial central pivot – this woman “who came from nothing” and who, despite real success as a writer, believes herself to be “invisible”, remaining for ever the victim of her upbringing, her brutal poverty, her uncommunicative father and her unsmiling, unloving mother. And now, with this new book, we know so much more about where and exactly how those circles will collide. So it isn’t a linear narrative so much as a Venn diagram that is being drawn around Lucy and the result is that every action she takes, every decision she mulls is already surrounded by intersecting circles. With Oh William! and its predecessor, Anything Is Possible, however, Strout is constantly weaving new strands alongside the main narrative, skidding backwards and forwards in time, but also – and satisfyingly – sideways to siblings, to neighbours, to offspring.
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