(It is indeed Lucy Barton’s ‘memoir’, but not Elizabeth Strout’s.) Indeed the title My Name is Lucy Barton introduced an initial layer of confusion as some literal-minded readers assumed it was a memoir. Whilst none of these novels are autobiographical, Strout has described the Lucy Barton books as ‘a risk – not least because I made Lucy a writer’. These books emerged organically one by one as Strout realised that she wanted to dig around the life of this character. And, with the latest in the cycle, Lucy By the Sea (her ninth novel and fourth Lucy Barton book) about to come out, we still don’t know whether the cycle is closed or ongoing. She now appears as the wife of the title character from Oh William! (Strout’s eighth novel, her third Lucy Barton book and currently shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize.) So who is Lucy Barton? And does it matter about the way these books fit together and the order in which they should be read?Īccording to her interviews, Strout herself does not seem to have conceived the phenomenon now unofficially known as ‘the Lucy Barton story cycle’ with a plan in mind. Lucy first appeared in My Name is Lucy Barton (her fifth novel, the first Lucy Barton book and Booker longlisted in 2016). If you haven’t been with Elizabeth Strout from the beginning – since Amy and Isabelle in 1998 (her first novel) – then you could be forgiven for being a little confused about Lucy Barton and her place in Strout’s work.

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