Hmmm. I usually love anything Elizabeth Strout has written. She does a great job creating characters so real you feel they live in your hometown. And yet, I did not love this book. In part, probably because it's too fresh. All the events of the last three years are there: the pandemic, the 2020 election, the Jan 6 coup attempt. I've experienced fictional re-tellings of most of these events (eg. The Morning Show) and generally haven't been put-off by them, but this one was different. Maybe it's because Lucy isn't that relatable? Despite being a successful author who has spent most of her adulthood in NYC, she's some cross of naive/disconnected from reality. Watching her grapple with disbelief, denial, boredom and frustration makes her hard to like. It's been a while since I read "My Name Is Lucy Barton" or the other two books directly related to this story line, so I can't remember if she always rubbed me the wrong way, or if –as often happens – she's doubled-down on the less pleasant aspects of her character as she's aged.

I'll be curious to re-read this one in a few decades (knock wood!) to see how it ages. Strout has captured details of the pandemic that are likely to dull for the rest of us over time.