Russell T Davies Instagram – “It is interesting how people endure things.” Lucy Barton is taken out of New York to escape the pandemic, and discovers a new life with ex-husband William. The third Lucy Barton novel, and the first proper Covid novel I’ve read – no, come back! It’s amazing how much I’d forgotten about those days and fascinating to see it laid out so clearly. Lucy’s voice is a miracle of precision and understatement, sometimes certain, sometimes trembling with doubt, and there’s a real joy in this as love floods into her life once more. But Elizabeth Strout has always kept an eye on the wider world – the fact that Lucy was born in poverty is never forgotten – and a new fear edges into this. The fear of November 2024. I finished this book weeks ago, and it’s haunted me ever since; Lucy sees things with a frightening insight. A brilliant, vital book. . “What I am trying to say is that for a few minutes I had what almost felt like a vision: that there was a deep, deep unrest in the country and that the whispering of a civil war seemed to move around me like a breeze I could not quite feel but could sense. We got our ice cream and we left, and I told William what I had felt and he said, ‘I know.’” . #lucybythesea #elizabethstrout @penguinukbooks @penguinbooks @randomhouse #books #goodbooks #greatbooks #booksofinstagram #writersofinstagram #authorsofinstagram #bookstagram #instabook #bookclub #lucybarton Book Club