Serendipity meeting choice feted
Returning to characters of previous novels, Elizabeth Strout folds them into COVID-19’s twist of fate in “Lucy by the Sea.” Lucy’s world is on the verge of collapse, a pandemic wreaking havoc on a country on the brink of a civil war. The broader social context of doom and despair contrasts with the close and compassionate first-person narrator and reflects the novel’s primary interests in loss and love on a systemic and personal level.
The novel inhabits an emotionally rich terrain, where past failures shine light on future possibilities, where strength comes from vulnerability and where chance challenges choices. The novel begins with Lucy’s ex-husband, William, a prescient scientist, insisting she leave New York City and weather out the pandemic with him in a coastal Maine town.
In Maine, Lucy takes long walks, watches the news, befriends neighbors, witnesses chance encounters and rides out the various stages of the pandemic. She also reflects on past heartbreak, mothers her adult daughters through their plights in love and work and accepts her aging and imperfect self.
At the same time, Lucy observes violence across class, political, racial and gender lines, on the news, outside her car window and mixed into the lives of her loved ones. The immediate state of lockdown creeps into the conclusions she draws about life’s circumstances, which she finds to be a kind of lockdown themselves.
Strout’s prose is truthful and emphatic. At times lyrical, at moments burdened, the layered texture to Strout’s tone fights a hint of self-doubt with patience and kindness.
While having read the novels that precede “Lucy by the Sea” would orient familiarity with the background context of the current relationship-driven territory, it is not essential to being immersed in Strout’s writing, which lives in the moment. Someone familiar with Strout’s previous novels would surely connect to this one on a deeper level. As the characters deal with the guilt and shame of their pasts, this novel celebrates serendipity meeting choice.
— Amancai Biraben, Associated Press
An alcoholic author gets a strange visit
that dredges up old memories. A couple becomes trapped on a cruise ship at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two people quietly believe they’re taking advantage of one another in a bet for a French apartment.
Each of the stories in T.C. Boyle’s latest collection “I Walk Between the Raindrops” gloms onto an idea and follows it, taking readers down a rabbit hole before plopping them back down almost in the same spot they started.
Boyle is well-published with over two dozen books under his belt. It shows in the steady voice prominent throughout his collection.
Ten out of 13 short stories in “I Walk Between the Raindrops” feature a straight, presumably white, male character, many of whom are self-righteous, racist, misogynistic or some combination of those three. Sometimes, these annoyingly recurring traits become the crux of the story, and Boyle invites the reader to inspect or even laugh at them. Other times, they’re the default mode and nothing more.
Rather than creative story concepts or exploring non-normative people, what Boyle shines in is appreciating a character through and through — the voice, psychology and mannerisms that make each one unique despite heavy overlaps in their demographic.
The collection’s namesake, “I Walk Between the Raindrops” falls flat, serving as a poor introduction. But Boyle’s conversational style and tidbits of wry humor grew on me.
Among the best is the endearing final story “Dog Lab,” about a medical student struggling with the morality of operating on his canine patient. In it, Boyle showcases his capability with an engaging plot, engrossing details and rich characterizations.