It’s a cliched question, but nonetheless a valid one: Is it possible to ever fully know the experience of another person?
In her third installment of the loosely connected Lucy Barton novels, Elizabeth Strout mines a former couple’s evolving relationship to show that despite our best intentions, sometimes even our most intimate connections remain shrouded in mystery.
Chronologically, “Oh William!” picks up where Strout’s 2017 book, “Anything Is Possible” — an interconnected series of stories set in Lucy’s hometown in Illinois — leaves off. But rather than continue to focus on Amgash’s myriad townsfolk, Strout turns her radar once again on Lucy and her immediate family.
在大多数情况下，这是一个受欢迎的回报（如果您喜欢2016年的幽闭恐惧症的“我的名字是露西·巴顿”，并且能够掩盖Strout的习惯，那就是重新养成这种旧情节，即）。露西（Lucy）仍然是一名成功的作家，现在是她60多岁的露西（Lucy），他像以往一样怪异而直截了当。第二任丈夫去世后，她重新点燃了与第一任丈夫威廉的友谊。
Thankfully, it isn’t what you think. In their ripe old(er) age, Lucy and William aren’t giving it another roll in the hay for old times’ sake, even after William’s much younger third wife leaves their marriage. Instead, the two birds have fallen back into a comfortable companionship, relieved of the cloying pressures of sex, romance and marital obligation. Lucy has agreed to accompany William on a trip back to rural Maine to research his roots, including sleuthing out the possible existence of a half-sister he never knew he had.
How this plays out volleys between humdrum yet comforting and achingly sad.
On the enjoyable end of the spectrum, the scenes in which the two bicker resemble — if I might reference another beloved couple from Strout’s repertoire — Olive and Henry Kitteridge-style banter. My favorite is this gem Lucy lobs at William at a mom-and-pop restaurant while on the road: “You could hold the door open for me instead of pushing yourself through it. And you could wear a pair of pants that were long enough, for another thing. Your khakis are too short and it depresses the hell out of me. Jesus, William, you look like adork.”
On the flip side, Lucy’s relentless, often circular analysis of her personal flaws and fears, her wretched childhood and the effect it continues to have on her, and the chasm between what she thought she knew about her relationships — with William, her grown children, and even her deceased ex-mother-in-law — and what they reveal themselves to be over the course of the book feels eerily unsettling.
Pair that with Lucy’s daughter’s miscarriage, William’s helplessness despite his confident veneer and a pervasive loneliness that shadows most of the characters in the book, and what you’ve got is a master class on the perils of aging.
In all eight of her books, Strout excels at excavating the most vulnerable aspects of the human condition, no matter how disorienting or painful, and she continues to do so here. Because of its brutal honesty, “Oh William!” lands like a “dull disc of dread in [the] chest” at times. But it also serves as a gentle reminder to be emotionally generous with our loved ones and as physically present as possible each and every day of our lives.
哦，威廉！
By Elizabeth Strout
(Random House; 256 pages; $27)