50 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth StroutLucy by the Sea
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 2, Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 2
Book 2, Chapter 4 Summary
As time passes, Lucy settles into their life further, but the only person she seems to feel okay with is Bob. William is distant, and she is starting to lose memories of David. She wants to see her daughters again. She wonders why they haven’t come to visit since they have had the virus and have been protesting. William has found interesting work helping a local potato farmer figure out his parasite problem. Lucy has nothing like that, and is lonely.
Driving home one night through a quiet neighborhood, Lucy realizes that her childhood was spent in lockdown. Her family lived in terrible poverty and her parents’ mental health conditions, as well as her mother’s abuse, were isolating. That night, she has a panic attack and goes outside to get control of herself. When she comes back in, she tells William she is homesick, but has no home to go back to.
William holds her as she cries. They have sex, and afterward, sleep together every night. They talk about telling their daughters about their rekindled relationship, but decide to wait until they are ready—it feels too private right now. They are enjoying their intimacy and the comfort it offers.
Lucy runs into Charlene, and they go for a walk. Charlene talks about Olive Kitteridge, whose best friend, Isabelle, has moved from independent living to the nursing home. Lucy and Charlene agree to meet and walk again two weeks later.
One day, Lucy returns home to find William laying on the couch—he is dizzy. Lucy calls Bob, whose doctor friend tells William to drink a liter of water. As it turns out, the dizziness is due to dehydration. Lucy is badly shaken, and suddenly fears that William will die before her.
Book 2, Chapter 5 Summary
William feels that he is a failure, both professionally and personally. He is also deeply ashamed that his grandfather’s wealth was built by profiting on World War II. Over the years, he has given away much of it to charity, but he is especially ashamed because his father hadn’t taken the money, and his mother had told him not to. He worries that the same thing is happening again, that people are making money off the world’s destruction. He knows that, even if they give it all away later, the damage is done. Lucy realizes that she cannot help him feel better, that in some things, humans are alone.
One day, William and Bob surprise Lucy with a writing studio, her first ever, a small room in town. In late August, she decides to sell her New York apartment, but wonders how she can move out during the pandemic. William argues that it is a good time—there is a lull in cases right now, but the pandemic will surge again with cold weather. In September, Bob and a few men he recruits move Lucy’s few remaining possessions to the house in Maine. She brings a few boxes to her studio, and goes through old writing and photographs.
One day, William wants to go to Dixon, where the millworkers had lived in beautiful houses built by the owner. In photos, taken in the 1950s, the houses are lovely, but when they arrive, they see that they are now dilapidated. As they are leaving the town, Lucy sees a policeman and wonders what his job is like right now.
Lucy decides to write a story about him. She connects it to memories from her own childhood, specifically her mother’s abuse of her brother. She realizes that her brother is now alone because of the pandemic. She remembers that he used to go to the neighbor’s farm and sleep with the pigs that were to be slaughtered the next day.
In October, William asks if she wants to buy the house they are living in. He explains that they should become residents of Maine so that they don’t have to travel to get the vaccine. When she agrees, William tells her he has already bought it. She realizes that William has his sister’s family there and his new career, and is building a life in Maine.
One day, William suggests that they drive to L. L. Bean, and Becka and Chrissy arrive, surprising her. They check into a hotel in Crosby and then go to Lucy and William’s house. Becka and Chrissy love the house, and Lucy tells them that William bought it. Chrissy and Michael have bought the house in Connecticut from his parents, and are not returning to New York. Becka is thinking about going to law school and has applied to Yale. At the end of the visit, Lucy tells Chrissy and Becka that she and William have gotten back together. They are surprised, which in turn surprises Lucy, and Becka even gives her a hug before they leave.
Book 2, Chapter 6 Summary
In November, the presidential election happens. Lucy and William have an unconventional Thanksgiving—beans, hot dogs, and apple pie. Lucy is worried about her brother, who is going to Vicky’s house to celebrate. She realizes that for a solitary man like him, Thanksgiving is special.
Lucy’s sister, Vicky, is diagnosed with the virus a week after Thanksgiving. She is on a ventilator, but eventually recovers. Their brother, however, does not. He calls her one day when he is ill, and refuses to go to the hospital. He also tells her that he loves her, for the first time ever. When he dies, Lucy is grief-stricken. She remembers the last time she visited Pete, who still lived in their childhood home, and Vicki. She had a panic attack, and they had driven her back to Chicago.
In December, Lucy is still grieving her brother. To her, it seems like the end of her childhood. The weather is getting colder and darker, and she cannot walk as much. Also because of the cold, they cannot see people socially anymore, especially as Covid has reached Maine.
On January 6, she and William watch on television as people attack the Capitol. Lucy feels disoriented, distanced from the event as she had felt distanced when the virus had first begun, and cannot watch. William, on the other hand, immerses himself in the news.
Lucy remembers when she gave a talk at her alma mater about her memoir, and how wealthy and resistant the students seemed. By the end, she had felt humiliated by their refusal to engage with her. She believes that she understands the anger of the people who invaded the Capitol. Then, she remembers that some of them were white supremacists and thinks that she doesn’t understand, after all.
When she meets Charlene for their walk, Charlene tells her that she cannot work at the food pantry anymore because she is not going to get the vaccine. Although Lucy wants to ask her why, she doesn’t, and Charlene is grateful.
Book 2, Chapter 4-6 Analysis
In Chapter 4, Lucy faces a turning point. She is feeling isolated and alone—William has found work, her daughters are busy in Connecticut, and the only person she feels a real kinship with is Bob Burgess. When she admits this to William, she realizes that she is homesick. The only time she truly felt like she had a home was during their marriage, with their family.
This is also a turning point in Lucy and William’s relationship. They reconnect when he consoles her, and the comfort and companionship they have been increasingly feeling goes further. After they have sex, they implicitly agree that they are back together, and yet when she wakes up in the morning, William is gone for his walk. She realizes: “He was still William. And I was still me” (179). Although she is reentering a relationship with William, she has her eyes open, and is well aware of both their faults.
One night when they are driving home, Lucy mentions the idea of lockdown, realizing that she spent her childhood this way. Her family lived in poverty, resulting in isolation. This is a revelation to her, although William is not surprised. Lockdown is a metaphor, where something is compared to something else without using “like” or “as.” In this case, lockdown, both during Covid and Lucy’s childhood, is a metaphor for The Loneliness of Being Human, a theme that Strout explores throughout the book.
Lucy and Charlene’s friendship continues to grow, and they walk together now. In another reference to Strout’s other Crosby, Maine books, Charlene talks about Olive’s closest friend, Isabelle, a character from Strout’s first book, Amy and Isabelle (1998). Although Lucy may feel alone and homesick, she is actually becoming a part of the community of Crosby. In this way, Strout prepares the reader for Lucy’s decision, at the end of the novel, to stay.
In Chapter 5, Strout delves further into William’s character as he faces guilt over his wealth, which he got from his grandfather’s war profiteering. His shame is compounded by the fact that his father had refused the money, and his mother had told him not to take it. William worries that people are profiting off the world’s current chaos. He understands from his own experience that the damage is irreparable, whether or not there are future reparations. Strout once again places these larger, global issues in a very personal context.
William and Bob arrange for Lucy to have a studio for the first time in her life, another sign that she is settling into Maine, and that William is eager for her to do so. He convinces her to become a resident and does the same himself, showing, once again, William’s ability to project into the future, at least when it comes to the pandemic.
Strout explores shifting attitudes toward the police when Lucy sees an officer and wonders what his job is like currently. She decides to write about him because, in her characteristic way, she wants to try to understand him. Strout continues to probe the issues raised by George Floyd’s murder, and the nationwide scrutiny of the police that followed.
At the beginning of Chapter 6, Strout marks time with Lucy’s reference to the election in November of 2020. However, Strout doesn’t go into detail about it, instead focusing on Lucy and William’s Thanksgiving. Strout continues to balance the events of the larger world and the personal events going on in Lucy’s life. Lucy and William’s Thanksgiving is unconventional—they eat hot dogs, beans, and apple pie. Lucy likes it: “[T]he day felt so cozy” (224). Strout again shows how simple traditions and routine broke down during the pandemic. With Lucy’s comment, she suggests that this wasn’t always a bad thing.
Strout again weaves the pandemic with Lucy’s personal life when Lucy’s brother gets Covid at Vicky’s Thanksgiving dinner, later dying from it because he is afraid to go to the hospital. Although Lucy is worried that he will be attending, she doesn’t say anything, having learned to let people make their own decisions and not let her worry drive everything.
December is a low point for Lucy. She and William have been in Maine for nine months, and she is grieving her brother. The days are getting dark and cold, and their social life slows down, as it is too cold to sit outside. In addition, Covid has reached Maine, and so they are moving back into isolation. Strout again navigates the range of emotions that many people felt during the pandemic, when at a certain point, it felt as though it would never end.
On January 6, Strout explores how the general public’s reacted to Trump supporters invading the Capitol building. Lucy and William adopt two common reactions—Lucy can’t watch, and William can’t look away. Lucy struggles to understand their perspective. She has a moment of understanding, based on her interactions with Vicky and Charlene and her discussions with William. That understanding is quickly lost, however, when she remembers the signs of antisemitism spread throughout the crowd. Strout again uses Lucy to probe a deeply sensitive event in American history, and to show the complexity of both its roots and aftermath.
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