A Familiar Voice Returns
There’s something instantly comforting about slipping back into Lucy Barton’s world. Like reuniting with an old friend, her voice—wry, self-effacing, achingly honest—wraps around you from the first page of Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Oh William!. The third book to feature Lucy as narrator (following My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible), this slim volume finds our protagonist in her 60s, recently widowed, and drawn back into the orbit of her first husband William.
As Lucy and William embark on a road trip to uncover long-buried family secrets, Strout once again demonstrates her “perfect attunement to the human condition” (as Hilary Mantel once put it). With delicate precision, she maps the terrain of long-term relationships—the ingrained patterns, unspoken understandings, and profound mysteries that persist even between people who have known each other for decades.
The Story Within the Story
The plot, such as it is, centers around William’s discovery that he has a half-sister he never knew about. His mother Catherine, we learn, had a child with her first husband before leaving him for William’s father (a German POW). This revelation sends William into an existential tailspin, causing him to reach out to Lucy for support as he grapples with this new information about his origins.
But as is often the case with Strout’s work, the real story lies not in the events themselves, but in Lucy’s recollections, observations and internal musings as she accompanies William on his quest. Through Lucy’s eyes, we see William anew—his insecurities, his capacity for cruelty, but also his fundamental decency and the ways he has shaped Lucy’s life for better and worse.
The Mysteries of Marriage
At its heart, Oh William! is an exploration of long-term marriage—both its limitations and its lingering power. Though Lucy and William have been divorced for decades, there remains between them an intimacy and understanding that transcends their official status as exes. “I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William,” Lucy tells us on the opening page, and what follows is a remarkably nuanced portrait of a relationship.
Strout captures with painful accuracy the way long-married couples can wound each other almost without thinking:
“William,” I said. “In what way?”
“Not communicative. You know how he gets.” Chrissy tossed her hair back.
“Well, I think he was really hurt.” I said this looking from one girl to the other. “Look, he got a double whammy: Estelle leaving him and then this half-sister who didn’t want to see him. He got a triple whammy, really. Because he also saw his mother’s house. You guys, that house was so—so—awful. I mean he had no idea she came from such a place. No idea at all.”
But she also shows the deep wells of affection and understanding that can persist long after a marriage has ended. Lucy may no longer be married to William, but she still knows him better than almost anyone—his moods, his vulnerabilities, the particular tenor of his silences.
The Lingering Power of First Love
There’s a poignancy to Lucy and William’s relationship that speaks to the singular place first loves hold in our lives. No matter how much time passes or how our circumstances change, those early attachments leave an indelible mark. As Lucy reflects:
I thought then of a woman I had met at a party. It was the first—and only—party I had gone to since David died, and I had expected it to be ghastly. But a woman was there, she was maybe ten years younger than I am, I would say around fifty-three or so, and she told me how she had gone online to a site called Ijustwanttotalk.com and it had changed her life.
Even as she mourns her late husband David, Lucy finds herself drawn back into William’s orbit, unable to fully disentangle herself from their shared history. It’s a testament to Strout’s skill that this dynamic feels entirely believable rather than contrived.
Strout’s Signature Style
Fans of Strout’s previous work will find much to love in Oh William!. Her prose retains its trademark spareness and clarity, with not a word out of place. Lucy’s voice—vulnerable yet resilient, scarred by her impoverished childhood yet still capable of wonder—remains as compelling as ever.
As in her previous books, Strout excels at illuminating the profound through the quotidian. A chance encounter, a fleeting memory, an offhand comment—in Strout’s hands, these small moments take on cosmic significance, revealing deeper truths about her characters and the human condition.
The Power of Omission
Perhaps Strout’s greatest strength as a writer is knowing what to leave unsaid. The spaces between her sentences often speak volumes, inviting the reader to fill in the blanks and draw their own conclusions. Consider this exchange between Lucy and William:
William said, “My father was in the Hitler Youth.”
“Tell me again,” I said, because he had already told me that, many years ago.
William said, “The only time that I can remember my father mentioning the war, there was something on television, what was it, that program about a German POW camp? It was supposed to be funny.”
I did not answer this because I had not had a television growing up, and also because I had heard this story before.
In just a few lines, Strout conveys volumes about William’s complicated relationship with his father’s past, Lucy’s impoverished upbringing, and the well-worn paths of conversation between long-term couples.
Themes of Class and Cultural Dislocation
As in her previous books, Elizabeth Strout continues to explore themes of class and cultural dislocation in Oh William!. Lucy’s journey from impoverished rural childhood to successful New York writer is a constant undercurrent, informing her perspective on everything from William’s privileged upbringing to her own feelings of invisibility and otherness.
The Scars of Poverty
Even decades removed from her hardscrabble youth, Lucy still carries the scars of her early deprivation. She reflects:
I have wondered why it was that as soon as Catherine died, I wanted my own name back. In my memory, there is a sense of my rejecting her, a sense that she had been too much in our marriage. But it was a long time ago, and I do not really know. But thinking this, it came to me that William had a dream after she died that he was sitting in the front seat of a car with her and I was in the backseat, and she kept banging into the cars ahead of her.
These moments of cultural disconnect—Lucy’s discomfort in fancy hotels, her bewilderment at social niceties—add texture and depth to the narrative, grounding Lucy’s observations in her unique lived experience.
A Meditation on Memory and Perception
Throughout “Oh William!”, Elizabeth Strout interrogates the nature of memory and perception. Lucy frequently questions her own recollections, wondering how much of what she remembers is truly accurate and how much has been colored by time and perspective.
This uncertainty extends to her understanding of William and their shared past. Even after decades of intimacy, Lucy realizes there are vast swaths of William’s inner life that remain opaque to her. As she puts it:
Except a little tiny, tiny bit we do.
But we are all mythologies, mysterious. We are all mysteries, is what I mean.
This may be the only thing in the world I know to be true.
It’s a profound observation, one that gets at the heart of Strout’s project as a writer—to illuminate the fundamental unknowability of even those closest to us, while still celebrating the moments of genuine connection we manage to forge.
Final Thoughts
Oh William! is a quiet marvel of a book, one that rewards close reading and repeated visits. Like life itself, it offers no easy answers or tidy resolutions. Instead, it invites us to sit with uncertainty, to find meaning in the everyday, and to recognize the profound mystery at the heart of all human relationships.
For longtime fans of Strout’s work, it’s a welcome return to Lucy Barton’s world. For newcomers, it serves as an excellent introduction to one of our finest living writers. Either way, it’s a book that lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned, inviting reflection and re-examination of our own relationships and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are.
In the Context of Strout’s Oeuvre
“Oh William!” cements Elizabeth Strout’s status as one of our most insightful chroniclers of human relationships. While it may not reach the dizzying heights of her Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, it stands as a worthy addition to her growing body of work. Readers who enjoyed the previous Lucy Barton books will find much to appreciate here, as will fans of writers like Alice Munro, Anne Tyler, and Kent Haruf who excel at illuminating the profound depths lurking beneath the surface of ordinary lives.
In the end, “Oh William!” is a testament to Elizabeth Strout’s singular gifts as a writer—her economy of language, her keen eye for human foibles, and her deep well of compassion for her flawed, fumbling characters. It’s a book that reminds us of the enduring power of human connection, even in the face of time, distance, and our own limited understanding of ourselves and others.