Have you ever naively read a book at random and come away thinking it was non-fiction, then to be told a friend it was fiction? I confess this is what happened to me when I red Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout. I think it is probably a sign of a very well crafted novel.

It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us.

Lucy by the Sea is a sequel to a book called Oh William, that I have neither read, nor was aware of. Perhaps I was just in a general state of vagueness when I picked up Lucy by the Sea! Needless to say it holds up perfectly well as a stand alone novel.

We all live with people — and places — and things — that we have given great weight to. But we are weightless, in the end.

When the pandemic strikes, Lucy’s ex-husband, a scientist, sees what’s coming and takes charge. He rents a house on the coast of Maine and insists that Lucy goes there with him to wait it out for a few weeks. Lucy is grieving the death of her second husband and goes along with Williams demands in a state of detachment bewilderment. William also begs their daughters Becky and Chrissy to leave New York with their husbands – one does, and one doesn’t.

Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us.

Lucy is a midlife writer and what follows is her account of the day to day and minute of what we all experienced through the pandemic. Working from home, cancelled events, people dying on ventilators, no funerals, face masks, surgical gloves and hoarding supplies. Lucy and Williams fill their days with walks along the cliffs, trying to work, and to manage familial relations from a distance. Lucy becomes frustrated with their circumstances, she hates Maine and at times cannot stand William. He is endlessly patient and as time passes, they become closer.

What is it like to be you? I need to say: This is the question that has made me a writer; always that deep desire to know what it feels like to be a different person.

Lucy by the Seas is a moving, meandering account of the pandemic that exquisitely captures the frustration, boredom and fears experienced across the globe during the pandemic before vaccines became available. It is an extraordinary story about the ordinary in extraordinary circumstances.