Volume 1_ 009
Volume 2_ 145
Acknowledgments_ 375
Translator's Note: I felt we were connected_ 377

In a time of crisis and division,
Facing and moving forward with painful memories
A soft and firm step

Lucy, a novelist, suddenly cancels her planned Italian book tour due to a change of heart that even she finds difficult to understand.
As March approaches, just as she was set to embark on her North American tour, unexpected news arrives that a virus has spread in Italy, but Lucy has no idea that it will affect New York as well.
But as we all know, the virus begins to spread across the globe before March is out, and Lucy's ex-husband and friend, William, suggests that they leave the city together.
Lucy, still recovering from the death of her husband David, and William, struggling with the turmoil of middle age due to his wife's sudden health decline and the discovery of a half-sister he never knew existed, head to a coastal town in Maine to save each other.

Looking back, the strange thing is how I could not have known what was going on at the time.
(Page 24)

Through everyday conversations and fragmented anecdotes, the work vividly depicts the chaotic landscape of the early days of the pandemic that everyone experienced.
Quarantine and social distancing, hoarding items at supermarkets, ostracizing people from other regions, working from home, vaccines... ... Things that seemed impossible to get used to, we've become numb to them, and silence and loneliness have become part of our daily lives. When I find memories in the story, emotions that had been buried rise to the surface.
With his characteristically exquisite and restrained prose, Strout summons scenes not yet digested into the present.
Even moments of extreme fear and sadness that are sometimes too vivid to recall clearly and are replaced by “strange, grayish colors.”

Furthermore, "Lucy by the Sea" does not miss the fact that there were people around us at that time who could not easily move their residence, who did not have anyone to answer the phone when they were lonely, and who could not climb stairs without help.
Such hardships and deprivations are never revealed abstractly, but are brutally revealed in the most concrete descriptions, in what happened to my family, my neighbors, and the people I greeted every day on the street.
So, Strout talks about why we must confront the memories of pain, even if it is a difficult thing to do.
For all of us who have gone through those difficult times together, there is clearly something to be drawn from those memories.

In the unknown beauty of life
About things that go beyond six feet

Although "Lucy by the Sea" is a story about two people living in an extremely limited environment, the novel features a large number of characters, just like the previous work.
Lucy falls in love with Bob Burgess, who fully understands her work and the poverty of her childhood, and also becomes close to his wife, Margaret.
Become friends with an elderly man who is suspected of having a sign on his license plate that reads, "Get out of here, New Yorker! Go home!"
I meet regularly with Charlene Bieber, who shares my political leanings and values ​​on vaccines, for walks, sitting far apart on a bench, and sharing our life stories.
They face a turning point where their relationship with their daughters, whom they cannot easily hug or meet, completely changes, and they also come to know the true feelings of their older sister and brother that they never knew their whole lives.
True to Strout's novels, which always sublimate 'life' itself into art, 'Lucy by the Sea' continues with countless strange, beautiful, and sad encounters and partings that are inevitable in life.

Bob glanced at me as he walked slowly and said, “I’m listening to you, Lucy.”
We sat on a bench overlooking a beautiful little bay, less than six feet apart, him at one end, me at the other.
The sun shone a brilliant yellow.
(Page 115)

Perhaps the phrases that run through this novel are “I don’t know” and “I am listening.”
The appropriate spacing and repetition between sentences, and the dialogue that is so clear that it is transparent, leave us with the simple truth that life flows wildly in directions that are utterly unpredictable and incomprehensible.
Married in a seaside house with her ex-husband, who has just been abandoned by his third wife, she ends up piecing together a puzzle of Van Gogh's self-portrait.
Life can be a scary yet exciting thing because so many incomprehensible things will continue to unfold before us.
And the best way to spend that time would be to willingly go for a walk, somewhere farther and more unfamiliar, somewhere I don't know.
There, you will hear other people's stories through the sounds of the sea.
Even if there is a six-foot distance between them and me—a COVID-19 restriction.
I believe that turning the pages of this elegant and turbulent novel can be a starting point.
If we listen carefully to Lucy's story here, we might not be so blindly afraid of life's uncertain end, even when faced with a huge crisis that could strike at any moment.