Oh William!
Elizabeth Strout's 2021 novel is the third Lucy Barton book, after My Name Is Lucy Barton and Anything Is Possible, and it picks up Lucy in her sixties, recently widowed and living alone in New York. Her first husband William, the father of her two grown daughters, is now in his early seventies and has just been left by his much younger third wife, and he asks Lucy to come with him on a trip to rural Maine to investigate a stunning piece of family history he has only just learned about his own mother. The book is told in Lucy's distinctive low, ruminative voice, full of phrases like Oh William and I do not know, and it folds the road trip together with Lucy's memories of her marriage to him, the affairs, the daughters, and the long, complicated friendship that has survived everything. Strout was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for the book.
What you might want to know about Oh William!
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Lucy Barton, recently widowed, agrees to drive to rural Maine with her first husband William, who has just learned of an older half-sister he never knew about. Their road trip becomes a portrait of a long, strange marriage.
Yes. Oh William! is the third book in Elizabeth Strout's Lucy Barton series, after My Name Is Lucy Barton and Anything Is Possible. It can be read on its own but reads richer with the earlier books.
Oh William! was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022 and was named one of the best books of 2021 by The New York Times and other publications.
Oh William! is 256 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Oh William! takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Oh William! is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
Oh William! is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
