'Lucy by the Sea': Writer Elizabeth Strout's pandemic love story

We are delighted today to welcome back to Midday the writer Elizabeth Strout. She is the best-selling author of nine novels and many short stories. In 2009, she won the Pulitzer Prize for a terrific book, Olive Kitteridge. A film adaption of that book on HBO starred Frances McDormand and won eight Emmy Awards. Elizabeth Strout has revisited two of her iconic characters in subsequent books. We met Olive Kitteridge once more in Olive Again, and Olive makes an appearance in Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, too. In this new book, Strout keeps us current with another one of her magnificent characters, Lucy Barton. It’s the fourth novel in which Lucy figures prominently. Like her book, Oh William! from last year, Strout centers this one on Lucy’s friendship with her first husband, a successful scientist named William Gerhardt. The setting is a small town in Maine, where Lucy and William have sequestered themselves at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Lucy is a rich, wonderful character, and Elizabeth Strout is a wonderful writer who brings us into Lucy’s loving and insightful mind with grace and compassion. The new novel is out today. It’s called Lucy by the Sea.  Elizabeth Strout joins us on Zoom from New York City.Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.