Amy and Isabelle–Strout’s first novel–don’t miss it

Amy and Isabelle

By Elizabeth Strout

Published 1998

Read Feb 2024

This reader has now read all of Elizabeth Strout’s published
books, the order being Olive Kitteridge  first following by Abide with Me
(before this website was started) then the Lucy Barton books, My
Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible.  Next this reader
read Burgess Brothers while waiting for more new Strout books which were read when available:  Olive Again! ,  Oh William, and Lucy by the Sea (post coming soon).  That left Amy and Isabelle on which this reader now reports.

Amy and Isabelle was Strout’s first novel, published in 1998.  The story is set in Shirley Falls, Maine, to where Isabelle moved with her young daughter,  with a wedding ring on her finger and a sad story that she had lost her husband and her parents were also dead.   Isabelle has remained a single mother, an
unusual situation in this town in the 1960’s. She doesn’t seem to have any friends and she and Amy live at the edge of the town in a rented house.  She is
secretary to Avery Clark at the town’s mill and remains separate from the other
women in the office. 

When the reader enters the story, 16-year-old Amy is working in a summer job her mother arranged for her.  Amy is temporarily replacing one of the women in the office who has recently has a hysterectomy and is recuperating at home.  It seems that woman was who usually listens to the stories of another office worker (Fat Bev) and now Amy is replacing that role as well.  Amy seems to like hearing the chatter of the office women but she clearly is not happy spending so much time in the same room as her mother.  Something has happened that causes Amy not to look in mirrors and the women to wonder why she has cut her hair so short.  We learn shortly that Isabelle’s daily prayers include asking for a better daughter.  So by the end of the first chapter, we expect to learn more about an untoward relationship between Amy and Mr. Robertson, a teacher at her school who the opening lines indicated left town that summer. 

Amy is quiet and shy, in high school, and seems alone save her friend, Stacy, with whom she shares cigarettes under the bleachers.  Stacy has broken up with her older boyfriend who likes going to bed with her.  It seems Stacy is bored with this preoccupation and we also learn at the end of chapter 1 that Stacy is pregnant. 

The story alternates between the present as Amy listens to Fat Bev, her mother pines for Avery Clark, and the search for a missing girl in the area continues, and a progression of events of the past school year as Amy’s relationship with school and her best friend Stacy evolve.  Amy has detention with her math teacher, Mr. Roberston, and then seeks reasons to continue to speak with him alone after school.

During these hot spring and summer months, the usual strain parents of high schoolers experience is underway.  Amy’s descriptions to her of her afterschool activities are quite different from actuality.  Both mother and daughter are quite disturbed by the apparent abduction of the local girl who hasn’t yet been found.  Amy pokes fun at Isabelle’s pronunciation of Yeats which leads Isabelle to try to educate herself with literature.  She first tries “Hamlet” which she can’t understand and then she reads “Madame Bovary” which she can understand but leaves her somewhat confused and agitated.   But the strain has skyrocketed even before it really began when Avery Clark discovers Amy and Mr. Roberston pursuing intimate acts in Mr. Roberston’s car.  This precipitates a fault line in Isabelle’s relationship with her daughter, with Mr. Avery, with the other women in the office, and with her past.

This book differs from many of Strout’s later novels that tend to describe scenes in the lives of other members of the community.  In this book, the focus is firmly on Amy and Isabelle.  Both become more isolated from others and now very isolated from each other after the incident.  Strout handles all of this in a seemingly calm fashion that at the same time enables the reader to feel everyone’s pain, frustration, and loneliness.

While this novel can well be described as nuanced, it also has many more descriptions than her later novels of the events and thoughts of the characters, and especially regarding the physical landscape of the area.  This gives this novel a richer, or perhaps, somewhat bulkier feel than her later novels.  In addition, this novel is not narrated by a character but rather we have an omniscient narrator that reveals both Amy and Isabelle’s feelings to us. 

This reader is glad to have finally read this first novel by Strout and to have met these characters.  Isabelle appears again in Olive Again!. This reader may revisit that book with new understanding of Isabelle.  Such an interesting web of books Strout has provided us and a new one coming in the summer of 2024!  This reader looks forward to more from this author.