My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

#7-Eh

Barton won a Pulitzer Prize for some other book she wrote...I don't see a Pulitzer in her future for this one.  Was it well written?  There were no obvious flaws in the actual writing.  Did I like the story?  I found the story and the characters...forgettable?  The backbone of the story, and it seemed to me the whole reason for its having been written, was to showcase the bond between a mother and her daughter and I found this part of it believable.  But the circumstances of the main character seemed designed solely to create a situation in which this relationship could be exploited, which I found distracting.  On the other hand, I thought the underlying theory was accurate:  sometimes, you just want your mom, and there is literally nothing else that will do.  In her absence, there is just that-an absence.  I don't think it matters if she was a great mom, a terrible mom, an indifferent mom or frankly a cruel mom -I suspect the same longing exists.  (Mine was a great mom, in case there is any doubt that she might fall into one of those other categories).  So with respect to that aspect of the book, I embraced it.  I kept thinking back to when I had my youngest and my mom came on a plane that very day to spend a couple of nights with me.  She spent the first night on a lounge chair in my hospital room right beside me and the baby.  I was a grown woman with two kids at home; I'd been through this whole baby thing before.  I was not afraid, not nervous, not anything but excited by this baby...and yet I was so very happy and grateful to have my mommy there with me.  So I kept thinking about that throughout my reading.  Other than bringing that specific memory back again and again though, this book didn't really do much for me.  Just, "Eh".