My Name Is Lucy Barton (11 page)

A
t times these days I think of the way the sun would set on the farmland around our small house in the autumn. A view of the horizon, the whole entire circle of it, if you turned, the sun setting behind you, the sky in front becoming pink and soft, then slightly blue again, as though it could not stop going on in its beauty, then the land closest to the setting sun would get dark, almost black against the orange line of horizon, but if you turn around, the land is still available to the eye with such softness, the few trees, the quiet fields of cover crops already turned, and the sky lingering, lingering, then finally dark. As though the soul can be quiet for those moments.

All life amazes me.

For my friend

Kathy Chamberlain

T
he author wishes to acknowledge the following for their help with this book: Jim Tierney, Zarina Shea, Minna Fyer, Susan Kamil, Molly Friedrich, Lucy Carson, the Bogliasco Foundation, and Benjamin Dreyer.

My Name Is Lucy Barton

The Burgess Boys

Olive Kitteridge

Abide with Me

Amy and Isabelle

E
LIZABETH
S
TROUT
is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of
Olive Kitteridge,
as well as
The Burgess Boys,
a
New York Times
bestseller;
Abide with Me,
a national bestseller and Book Sense pick; and
Amy and Isabelle,
which won the
Los Angeles Times
Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the
Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in England. Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including
The New Yorker
and
O: The Oprah Magazine.
Elizabeth Strout lives in New York City.

To inquire about booking Elizabeth Strout for a speaking engagement, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at
[email protected]
.

elizabethstrout.com

@LizStrout