Review of OH WILLIAM!
A humble, insightful look at memory, secrets and marriage ...
What to reveal, what to protect. What to hold onto, what to let go of. What to remember, what to forget. Yes, this is a story about marriage and, yes, it is the final piece in Elizabeth Strout’s slightly autobiographical trilogy of stories around Lucy Barton. I have not read the previous two books in the trilogy, and I am not a great fan of her first Olive Kitteridge book though the second is a gem. In other means, I have not swallowed the Elizabeth Strout oeuvre hook line and sinker. However, Oh William, even without the first two books, is a wise and honest book that has the ring of a literate confession that fame and money have not diminished. It reads quickly and brims with Strout’s soft philosophical touch. The dialogue is real, and the structure just complicated enough to provide a certain beat to its wistfulness.
Finishing it on an Amtrack train in early December with the gray trees and the simple houses and rundown wintry landscapes of New England zipping by was an unplanned complement to this late fall, early winter novel. It is sad but reassuring. Things can go wrong. You can be born in the wrong womb. You can make bad decisions. It all can end badly. Life may be a rundown effort to run away from fate. Or … you might forgive the unforgivable, embrace the contradiction and find love in all the strangest places and moments. Those rusty and bleak worlds the train raced by looked great when the sun broke through in the late afternoon. The light suggested that within their shabbiness and decay were stories worth telling. Such is this book’s message – for me. Grab a ticket on a long Amtrak ride, get a seat by the window, read it and see if you agree. It will be a lovely journey.
Oh William!
Elizabeth Strout
2021 240 pages