“She talked in a way I didn’t remember, as though a pressure of feeling and words and observations had been stuffed down inside her for years, and her voice was breathy and unselfconscious.”

Lucy’s mother arrives to take care of her while she recovers from complications from her surgery. Estranged, Lucy and her mother have not seen each other in years. Now an adult and a mother herself, Lucy sees her mother differently. Lucy’s complicated relationship with her mother is at the center of the novel and initiates Lucy’s development throughout the novel.

“This must be the way most of us maneuver through the world, half knowing, half not, visited by memories that can’t possibly be true.”

Lucy discusses a moment when she recalls a traumatic memory as an adult. She captures the paralyzing and disorienting nature of these moments. Lucy’s trauma affects her as an adult and influences her choices. Strout’s use of the collective “us” communicates this as a universal human experience.

“But the books brought me things. This is my point. They made me feel less alone. This is my point. And I thought: I will write and people will not feel so alone!”

As a child, Lucy navigates isolation, abuse, and unsafe living conditions. She escapes through her schoolwork and intense fascination with reading. Lucy’s call to write is one rooted in her traumatic childhood. Her writing serves an important role in her self-development as she confronts her painful past and processes her healing.