Author | Elizabeth Strout |
---|---|
Audio read by | Kimberly Farr |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Published | 2016 |
Publisher | Random House |
Media type | Print, e-book, audiobook |
Pages | 208 pages |
ISBN | 1400067693 |
Preceded by | The Burgess Boys |
Followed by | Anything Is Possible |
My Name is Lucy Barton is a 2016 New York Times bestselling novel and the fifth novel by the American writer Elizabeth Strout. [1] The book was first published in the United States on January 12, 2016 through Random House. The book details the complicated relationship between the titular Lucy Barton and her mother.
In July 2016, the novel was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize. The book was also shortlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award. [2] The novel was also adapted for the theatre by Rona Munro as a one-woman show, with an acclaimed 2018 London production starting Laura Linney which transferred to New York in January 2020.
Growing up in a dysfunctional household, Lucy Barton had a difficult childhood. Her father was abusive and while her mother loved Lucy, she was unable to protect her or her siblings from their father's mercurial mood swings and violent nature. As a result Lucy would frequently take solace in reading, which led her to realize that she wanted to become a writer. When she came of age, Lucy quickly fled the family home. Years later Lucy is hospitalized after she develops an infection following an operation. During her stay, her mother comes to visit and the two reconnect after years of not speaking to each other.
Critical reception for My Name Is Lucy Barton was positive and the work received praise from the Washington Post and the AV Club. [3] [4] [5] The Guardian compared the book favorably to Strout's earlier book, Olive Kitteridge , saying it "confirms Strout as a powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships, weaving family tapestries with compassion, wisdom and insight." [6] In a review with the New York Times , author Claire Messud praised the book's "beautifully too-human characters" and also drew favorable comparisons to Strout's earlier work. [7]
A monologue play adapted from the novel by Rona Munro opened at the Bridge Theatre in London in previews on June 2, 2018 and officially on June 6. The production was directed by Richard Eyre and starred Laura Linney. [8] Linney reprised her role in the play's Broadway premiere at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, with preview performances beginning on January 6, 2020 and an official opening on January 15. [9] Writing for The New Yorker , Alexandra Schwartz described how, "Strout’s language, deftly adapted for the stage by Rona Munro, is simple in the way of a coiled pot or a Shaker chair, a solid, unfussy construction whose elegance lies in its polished unity, and Linney, radiating warmth and lucidity, is just the right actor to bring it to life." [10]
The International Dublin Literary Award, established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely sponsored by Dublin City Council, Ireland. At €100,000, the award is one of the richest literary prizes in the world. If the winning book is a translation, the prize is divided between the writer and the translator, with the writer receiving €75,000 and the translator €25,000. The first award was made in 1996 to David Malouf for his English-language novel Remembering Babylon.
Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress. She is the recipient of several awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards and five Tony Awards.
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work. Toews is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
The International Booker Prize is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize, as the Booker Prize was then known, was announced in June 2004. Sponsored by the Man Group, from 2005 until 2015 the award was given every two years to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation. It rewarded one author's "continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage", and was a recognition of the writer's body of work rather than any one title.
Rona Munro is a Scottish writer. She has written plays for theatre, radio, and television. Her film work includes Ken Loach's Ladybird, Ladybird (1994), Oranges and Sunshine (2010) for Jim Loach and Aimée & Jaguar (1999), co-authored by German director Max Färberböck. Munro is the second cousin of Scottish author Angus MacVicar.
Magda Szabó was a Hungarian novelist. Doctor of philology, she also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memoirs, poetry and children's literature. She was a founding member of the Digital Literary Academy, an online digital repository of Hungarian literature. She is the most translated Hungarian author, with publications in 42 countries and over 30 languages.
Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her youth served as inspiration for her novels–the fictional "Shirley Falls, Maine" is the setting of four of her nine novels.
Jon McGregor is a British novelist and short story writer. In 2002, his first novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize, making him then the youngest-ever contender. His second and fourth novels were longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006 and 2017 respectively. In 2012, his third novel, Even the Dogs, was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award. The New York Times has labelled him a "wicked British writer".
Gail Jones is an Australian novelist and academic.
Melissa Lucashenko is an Indigenous Australian writer of adult literary fiction and literary non-fiction, who has also written novels for teenagers.
Anuradha Roy is an Indian novelist, journalist and editor. She has written five novels: An Atlas of Impossible Longing (2008), The Folded Earth (2011), Sleeping on Jupiter (2015), All the Lives We Never Lived (2018), and The Earthspinner (2021).
Diana Omo Evans FRSL is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written four full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the deciBel Writer of the Year award. Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. A House for Alice was published in 2023.
The Light Between Oceans is a 2012 Australian historical fiction novel by M. L. Stedman, her debut novel, published by Random House Australia on 20 March 2012. A film adaptation of the same name starring Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender was released on 2 September 2016.
The Bridge Theatre is a commercial theatre near Tower Bridge in London that opened in October 2017. It was developed by Nick Starr and Nicholas Hytner as the home of the London Theatre Company, which they founded following their tenancy as executive director and artistic director, respectively, at the National Theatre.
Anything Is Possible is a 2017 novel of related short stories by the American author Elizabeth Strout. The novel returns to the fictional rural town of Amgash, Illinois, which is the protagonist's hometown in Strout's 2016 novel My Name Is Lucy Barton. Former U.S. President Barack Obama included Anything Is Possible on a list of the best books he read in 2017. Anything is Possible won The Story Prize, a book award for short story collections.
Laura Linney is an American actress who has played roles in film, television and theater
Terra Nullius is a 2017 speculative fiction novel by Claire G. Coleman. It draws from Australia's colonial history, describing a society split into "Natives" and "Settlers."
Oh William! is a novel by American writer Elizabeth Strout, published on October 19, 2021, by Random House. The novel returns to the fictional rural town of Amgash, Illinois, from Strout's My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016) and Anything Is Possible (2017).