Oh William!

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022

THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, Booker-longlisted, bestselling author returns to her beloved heroine Lucy Barton in a luminous novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any point in life

Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband – and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidante. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a tender, complex, decades-long partnership.

Oh William! captures the joy and sorrow of watching children grow up and start families of their own; of discovering family secrets, late in life, that alter everything we think we know about those closest to us; and the way people live and love, against all odds. At the heart of this story is the unforgettable, indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who once again offers a profound, lasting reflection on the mystery of existence. ‘This is the way of life,’ Lucy says. ‘The many things we do not know until it is too late.’

‘A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own’ Hilary Mantel

‘A terrific writer’ Zadie Smith

‘She gets better with each book’ Maggie O’Farrell

‘One of America’s finest writers’ Sunday Times

‘This is meticulously observed writing, full of probing psychological insight. Lucy Barton is one of literature’s immortal characters-brittle, damaged, unravelling, vulnerable and, most of all, ordinary-like us all’ Booker Prize Judges