Amy and Isabelle

Elizabeth Strout’s first novel, family drama Amy and Isabelle (1998), was adapted into a TV movie of the same name, produced by Oprah Winfrey in 2001.

The novel is set in the fictional town of Shirley Falls, Maine. A river divides the town, separating the well-off residents from the poorer ones. Isabelle Goodrow and her sixteen-year-old daughter Amy live on the wealthy side of town, though they are an exception to the economic divide as they are not well off financially. Isabelle works at the local mill, and Amy attends high school where she is best friends with a rich girl Stacy Burrows.

Isabelle has a difficult past. She has raised Amy alone for most of Amy’s life. As a teenager, Isabelle was seduced by an older man Jake Cunningham, a friend of her father’s. Already married, when Jake found out that Isabelle was pregnant, he moved away with his family. Isabelle’s mother helped raise Amy while Isabelle attended college, but both Isabelle’s parents died when Amy was two. Isabelle sold the family home and rented a small carriage house in Shirley Falls.



Knowing that Amy’s parentage would cause a scandal, Isabelle tells everyone, including her daughter, that she is a widow. Isabelle works as a secretary at the mill, where she has a crush on her boss, Avery Clark, though he is married.

Isabelle and Amy are not close. Though Amy does not think that her mother can understand her, she acknowledges that she does not have a very good grasp of her personal identity herself. Isabelle worries about Amy but is under a tremendous amount of pressure and distracted by her own worries. Nevertheless, the two love each other deeply though they rarely, if ever, communicate it.

Stacy reveals to Amy that she is pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, a former school football captain who has graduated and now works at a gas station. Stacy has not yet told her parents or siblings because she resents them and feels that she can’t trust them.



Meanwhile, Amy is taken advantage of by her substitute math teacher, Thomas Robertson. Recognizing that Amy is vulnerable, Thomas strikes up a conversation with her about poetry. One day, he drives her home from school and has sex with her. Stacy sees Thomas and Amy together, realizes what is going on, and tells Isabelle.

Isabelle is furious that Amy has not told her about the affair. She is also upset because Amy has used the poetry that Thomas shared to make Isabelle feel stupid and uneducated. Isabelle forces Thomas to leave town and makes Amy submit to a haircut in which she shaves off her beautiful long hair. However, she is willing to keep the affair a secret to avoid scandal. She does tell Avery, who then tells his wife, who spreads the information to all the prominent women in town.

Dottie Brown, an employee at the mill, returns from medical leave and tells everyone that she has seen a UFO. Though the other workers mock her at first, she soon prompts some of them to become more honest. Fat Bev and Dottie come to Isabelle’s house one day and tell her about perceived humiliations from their pasts. Dottie tells Isabelle that her husband has left her for a younger woman with whom he is having an affair.



This revelation shocks Isabelle, who tells Amy the truth about her parentage. Once she has told her daughter the real story, a closer bond begins to form between them. She also shares the information with Fat Bev and Dottie. Though she had once been afraid that people would reject her if they knew the truth, instead, it deepens the bonds she has with others when she is honest. Her relationship with Amy begins to improve and she finally makes friends with other women in town.

However, Isabelle still knows the value of keeping some secrets. For example, she does not tell anyone about her feelings for Avery, since she knows there is nothing she can do to act on them and they would only make people uncomfortable.

At the end of the novel, Isabelle writes to Jake’s wife to apologize for the affair. Evelyn, who has since been widowed, is receptive to Isabelle and arranges a visit so Amy can meet her half-sister Catherine. Isabelle eventually gets over Avery, who, she realizes is closed-off and has little regard for other’s feelings. She marries, instead, the nice pharmacist who helped her when Amy was diagnosed with depression and prescribed Valium. Amy is finally allowed to grow up, receiving Isabelle’s blessing to pursue her attraction to boys as long as she is responsible.