Amy and Isabelle

A Novel

By: Elizabeth Strout

Narrated by: Stephanie Roberts

With compassion, humor, and striking insight, Amy and Isabelle explores the secrets of sexuality that jeopardize the love between a mother and her daughter. Amy Goodrow, a shy high school student in a small mill town, falls in love with her math teacher, and together they cross the line between understandable fantasy and disturbing reality. When discovered, this emotional and physical trespass brings disgrace to Amy's mother, Isabelle, and intensifies the shame she feels about her own past. In a fury, she lashes out at her daughter's beauty and then retreats into outraged silence. Amy withdraws, too, and mother and daughter eat, sleep, and even work side by side but remain at a vast, seemingly unbridgeable distance from each other.

This conflict is surrounded by other large and small dramas in the town of Shirley Falls: a teenage pregnancy, a UFO sighting, a missing child, and the trials of Fat Bev, the community's enormous (and enormously funny and compassionate) peacemaker and amateur medical consultant. Keeping Isabelle and Amy as the main focus of her sharp, sympathetic eye, Elizabeth Strout attends to them all. As she does so, she reveals not only her deep affection for her characters, both serious and comic, but her profound wisdom about the human condition in general. She makes us care about these extraordinary ordinary people and makes us hope that they will find a way out of their often self-imposed emotional exile.

©2013 Elizabeth Strout (P)2013 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"A novel of shining integrity and humor, about the bravery and hard choices of what is called ordinary life." (Alice Munro)

Amy and Isabelle

I read about the story and the synopsis on Amazon. I really enjoyed this book. It’s about a young woman who lives with her mother. They had a very strange relationship. I never knew what was going to happen next. I didn’t like that they left a few loose ends hanging. But, the narrator did such a fabulous job reading the book. There were parts where I laughed, parts that were unexpected, and things that happened that were unfortunate. I don’t want to give the storyline away, but it is a very enjoyable book. It reminded me of my strained relationship with my own mother.

beautiful characters

Where does Amy and Isabelle rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

#1

What was one of the most memorable moments of Amy and Isabelle?

that would be a spoiler

Have you listened to any of Stephanie Roberts’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

excellent reader

If you could take any character from Amy and Isabelle out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Isabelle, I'd like to sit down and talk to her. Or maybe Fat Bev. I liked all the women characters in this book.

Any additional comments?

Elizabeth Strout's characters are so real. Complicated people who do dumb stuff, make mistakes. But they are also capable of love, and those wonderful moments of real human love and insight. I find it easy to identify with all of them.

Amazing.

Beautiful story of mother and daughter and life in a small town. I couldn't stop listening to it.

Honest, tough and absorbing

This was my first Elizabeth Strout, and I'm looking forward to the next. The writing is precise and lyrical. Precise, in that there isn't a wasted word. Lyrical in that although there are few specific descriptions of places and things, you can "see" the rooms and settings clearly through the characters' dialog. The story is simple and urgently familiar to anyone who ever lived a limited life in a small town. My mental pictures as I listened were very Hopper: this is small town life, red in tooth and claw. It's not an easy listen but a worthwhile one.

I'm picky about narrators, and this one is pretty good. Occasionally a bit actor-ish, but generally authentic and without the overlay of her own opinions that spoils so many otherwise good audiobooks.

Another reviewer called it offensive. Well, a couple of scenes are quite explicit, but that was really necessary to evoke an adolescent girl's ignorance in the context of her first sexual encounter. Really poignant, the way she mistakes rutting passion for romance, and without that nuance the rest of the story wouldn't play.

Real life

A dramatic, well paced narrative centered on a hot, oppressive summer in a New England mill town. Excellent narration. This is a character driven story, and I found it quite compelling. Especially loved the "supporting" characters of Fat Bev and Dottie.

This book grows on you and stays!

Elizabeth Strout is a talented writer and brings people into my life whom I would probably never otherwise meet. These are simple, genuinely kind people who, like all of us, are trying to navigate life's difficulties - in this case, a mother and 17 year old daughter who don't really start communicating until they are faced with major obstacles. The characters are beautifully drawn and the changes they come into are authentically depicted. I loved it.

Good story line but too much detail

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would not recommend this book to a friend. The mother/daughter relationship storyline appealed to me. However, the author described every little thing in unnecessary detail. For example, if a leaf is green I find it unnecessary to spend five minutes talking about the shade of green. If a character does something gross, a five minute description of just how gross is a turn-off in my opinion. In summary, the book could have held my interest if it the author had not gone on and on and on about things that had no bearing on the storyline. Since that was not the case, I got through only about 3/4 of the audio.

Would you be willing to try another book from Elizabeth Strout? Why or why not?

No, because she goes on and on and on about things that are insignificant to the story.

What about Stephanie Roberts’s performance did you like?

The narrator had a nice, professional, theatrically-trained sounding voice. She did not take deep loud breaths after each sentence like so many audible narrators do. I also appreciate that I did not hear smacking and saliva as I do with many of the narrators. I would love to hear her read a more interesting book.

Could you see Amy and Isabelle being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

I could see it being made into a movie,but it would be a very dark, solemn, depressing movie. It definitely would not be a movie I would want to see.

Such a honestly written book

This book is written in such an honest & beautiful way. The characters seem real & you become more invested in their lives as the story goes on. You feel for Isabelle as she decides to be honest with people about her life & as she discovers the meaning of friendship. You feel for Amy in a totally different way, as she discovers her sexuality & all the mistakes she makes. I couldn't stop listening, but didn't want the story to end.

Excellent

I have just completed an Elizabeth Strout binge. Although at first her style of seemingly unrelated vignettes and lengthy descriptions felt tiresome and heavy, the more i read the more i felt enveloped by the stories and the characters.
This book in particular was interesting from the beginning. Was immediately taken (negatively at first) by both mother & daughter yet was constantly propelled forward to share their lives and their own self discovery.
All Strouts characters, minor or central, are well rounded and clear. Each character brings their own story and relevance to the plot. I particularly love the fact that her main characters, women are all mostly independent, individualistic and deep.

Wonderful

As a glass if cool water on a hot day
. Both the story and the performance.