Reading Order
Oh William! Reading Order
Oh William! (2021) by Elizabeth Strout is the second Lucy Barton novel — returning to Lucy Barton in her 60s, now twice married (William, her first husband, and David, who has since died), and following her and William as they take a road trip together to Maine after William discovers the existence of a half-sister he never knew. The novel is told by Lucy in the same oblique, understated way as My Name Is Lucy Barton — she says 'I do not know' constantly about the things she doesn't know, and she circles the most important things rather than confronting them directly. Oh William! is a novel about long intimacy — about what it means to know someone for decades, to have shared a life and children and then to have separated and moved on to other lives, and still to feel the specific weight of that long knowing. William is a difficult man — self-absorbed, ungrateful, emotionally defended — and Lucy's continued affection for him despite his flaws is one of the novel's central mysteries, and one of its central truths about the persistence of old love. The novel was a finalist for the Booker Prize and marked Strout's continued engagement with the Lucy Barton world she had been building since 2016.
Where to start
Read My Name Is Lucy Barton first — Oh William! builds on the Lucy/William relationship established there and assumes familiarity with Lucy's history. Any Random House paperback of Oh William!
Complete Oh William! Book List
- 1Buy
Oh William!
Elizabeth Strout·2021·The novel — Lucy Barton in her 60s, a road trip with her first husband William to Maine, the discovery of his half-sister; the second Lucy Barton novel; Strout's most direct portrait of long intimacy and what it persists into. - 2Buy
My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout·2016·The essential predecessor — the first Lucy Barton novel; the hospitalization, the mother's visit, Lucy's Illinois childhood; all the history that Oh William! builds on. - 3Buy
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout·2008·Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in stories — the companion in her fiction; the Crosby, Maine community portrait is the companion to the Lucy Barton series in Strout's fictional world. - 4Buy
Olive, Again
Elizabeth Strout·2019·The companion Olive novel — Olive in her late 70s and 80s; the companion in Strout's late fiction about old age and unexpected intimacy. - 5Buy
The Burgess Boys
Elizabeth Strout·2013·Strout's companion Maine novel — the companion in her Maine fiction and her portrait of long family relationships. - 6Buy
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro·1989·Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning novel — the companion in literary fiction about long relationships and what was missed; Stevens's retrospective account of his career and what he didn't say to Miss Kenton is the companion meditation to Oh William!'s portrait of Lucy and William's long, complicated relationship. - 7Buy
Our Souls at Night
Kent Haruf·2015·Haruf's final novel — Addie and Louis in Holt, Colorado; the companion in American fiction about two old people finding something in each other in their final years; Oh William!'s Lucy and William and Our Souls at Night's Addie and Louis are parallel in their unexpected late intimacy. - 8Buy
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson·2004·Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — the companion in American fiction about old age and the retrospective account of a life; John Ames's letter to his young son is the companion meditation on what one passes on to the people one loves.
Oh William! — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Oh William! about?
Oh William! follows Lucy Barton in her 60s, now a twice-married widow (David, her second husband, has died). William, her first husband, discovers that his recently deceased mother had a daughter before she married William's father — a half-sister that William never knew existed. William asks Lucy to accompany him to Maine, where the half-sister lives, and the novel follows their road trip: the conversations they have, the revelation about William's family, the specific quality of their long complicated relationship as two people who were once married, have been apart for decades, and still feel the weight of that long knowing.
What is William like?
William is a parasitologist at Columbia, a man of some professional distinction and considerable personal difficulty. He is self-absorbed, often ungrateful, emotionally defended, and prone to behavior that Lucy finds baffling (he has been married several times after Lucy, often to much younger women). Yet Lucy continues to feel a specific kind of affection for him — not romantic love but something like the persistence of an old, deep intimacy that has outlasted its own narrative. One of the novel's central questions is why Lucy continues to care about William despite his obvious flaws, and Strout answers it honestly: because long knowing creates its own form of attachment that is different from and harder to extinguish than romantic love.
What does Lucy say 'I do not know' about?
Lucy Barton says 'I do not know' constantly throughout the novel — about why she went on the trip with William, about what William felt, about what she herself felt, about the connections between things. The repeated acknowledgment of not knowing is part of Strout's technique: Lucy is a writer, and the novel is partly about how a writer processes experience that she doesn't yet fully understand. The 'I do not know' is also an ethical posture — refusing to claim certainty about another person's interior life that she could not actually have. It is one of the formal signatures of Strout's Lucy Barton mode.
What is the road trip to Maine about?
The road trip to Maine — to the remote area where William's half-sister Marilyn lives — is the novel's spine, but what the trip is actually about is the relationship between Lucy and William, which the travel and shared meals and motel rooms make available for examination in a way that their ordinary separate lives do not. The landscape of Maine and the discovery of William's half-sister give the novel its plot; what Strout is actually writing about is long intimacy, the persistence of old love, and what two people who know each other very well can and cannot say to each other.
What should I read after Oh William?
After Oh William!, Lucy by the Sea (2022) continues the Lucy Barton series during the COVID pandemic. My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016) is essential if you haven't already read it. Olive Kitteridge (2008) and Olive, Again (2019) are the companion Olive books. For American fiction about long relationships and late-life reassessment, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Kent Haruf's Our Souls at Night are the most important companions.
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