has always awed us with her ability to put into words the mysterious and unfathomable ways in which people cherish each other.' -Chicago Tribune 'This slim, perceptive novel packs more sentiment and pain into its unsparingly honest and forthright prose than novels two and three times as long. 'An aching, illuminating look at mother-daughter devotion.' -People is in supreme and magnificent command of this novel at all times.' -Lily King, The Washington Post It is both a book of withholdings and a book of great openness and wisdom. It evokes these connections in a style so spare, so pure and so profound the book almost seems to be a kind of scripture or sutra, if a very down-to-earth and unpretentious one.' - Newsday 'A short novel about love, particularly the complicated love between mothers and daughters, but also simpler, more sudden bonds. 'It is Lucy's gentle honesty, complex relationship with her husband, and nuanced response to her mother's shortcomings that make this novel so subtly powerful.' - San Francisco Chronicle 'A quiet, sublimely merciful contemporary novel about love, yearning, and resilience in a family damaged beyond words.' - The Boston Globe Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters.

Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. The Washington Post - The New York Times Book Review - NPR - BookPage - LibraryReads - Minneapolis Star Tribune - St. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the tender relationship between mother and daughter in this extraordinary novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys.

Lucy barton novels