My Name is Lucy Barton (Strout) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for My Name Is Lucy Barton:

1. What happened to Lucy that estranged her from her parents? When did you first begin to suspect, then to fully understand Lucy's demons?

2. Describe each of the two women, Lucy and her mother. What is their relationship with one another, and how does the relationship change during the course of the novel?

3. Why is Lucy's mother unable to be emotionally open to her daughter? How different is Lucy's relationship with her own daughters?

4. What is the state of Lucy's marriage? How do the couple's divergent upbringings, one impoverished and the other comfortable, affect their relationship? Talk about the role that class plays in this book.

5. How did you feel, later in the book, when Lucy's dying mother tells her, "I need you to leave" and the father who brutalized her says, "What a good girl you've always been"?

6. What does Strout's book suggest about the pull of family and the power of redemption? What makes forgiveness possible? Do all things deserve forgiveness?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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