A different kind of pandemic novel than Day, but the one to read if realism inflected with kindness and wisdom is your thing.
Elizabeth Strout nails the early uncertainty in the weeks and months after March 2020 and persuasively navigates Lucy's gradual, difficult transition from city to country mouse without giving short shrift to either environment, emotionally or politically. She writes movingly of the importance of human touch within and without family while stoically acknowledging “We are alone in these things we suffer."
In spite of the loss and illness Lucy experiences, mostly second-hand, her relentless self-examination and her ex-husband's protectiveness believably revive their long dormant need for one another. As a result, their family becomes unexpectedly whole again, a hope that Lucy seemingly put to rest in Oh William!, Strout's previous novel, and her relationship with her daughters deepens and finally pushes aside the demons of her own upbringing.
Life keeps throwing us curve balls and nobody captures them more empathically than Strout.
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