“Strout describes her writing style as that of “an embroiderer” – “I will pick it up and embroider a little green line, and come back later and embroider a leaf or something” – and her novels, intricately and painstakingly crafted, overlap and intertwine to create an instantly recognisable fictional landscape.”
Lisa Allardice, “Interview: Elizabeth Strout: ‘There’s a quiet rumbling of violence in America. Is it going to expand and explode?,’” Books, The Guardian, September 24, 2022.“To Strout, writing is an act of revelation. And she is always writing, often in her studio above a nearby store. She’s amazed that Lucy returned for a fourth novel, but here she is.”
Karen Heller, “Elizabeth Strout has ‘millions of stories to tell’,” Book World, Washington Post, September 22, 2022.“Strout excels at distilling complex human emotions — fear of failure, regret that we never measured up — into something familiar and understandable.… Lucy By The Sea holds its own as an engaging and relatable story, where human bonds of love and meaning — over-examined and frayed as they may become in crisis — still serve as the essence of what makes us feel we matter and belong.”
Anne Eliot Feldman, “Long-Divorced Lucy Barton Finds Love During Pandemic,” BookTrib, September 19th, 2022.“In Lucy by the Sea, [Strout] continues to conceal her art in seeming artlessness and gives us a world in which nothing stands to reason or allows for easy expression. ”
Pico Iyer, “A Journal of the Plague Year,” Air Mail, September 17, 2022.“In its emotional heft and honesty, its ability to go fearlessly to the darkest places, its pellucid empathy and its spot-on rendering of the pandemic experience for both individuals and the country, [Lucy by the Sea] is perhaps the best of the four marvelous novels Strout has written featuring Lucy Barton.”
Pricilla Gilman, “Getting to the heart of the matter: Elizabeth Strout returns with the pandemic novel we need now,” Boston Globe, September 15, 2022.Sign up for Elizabeth’s newsletter, with exclusive content from Elizabeth to her readers.