NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout explores the mysteries of
marriage and the secrets we keep as a former couple reckons with where they’ve come from—and
what they’ve left behind. BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
Maureen Corrigan NPR’s Fresh Air Elizabeth Strout is one of my very favorite writers so the
fact that Oh William! may well be my favorite of her books is a mathematical equation for joy.
The depth complexity and love contained in these pages is a miraculous achievement.”—Ann
Patchett author of The Dutch House I would like to say a few things about my first husband
William. Lucy Barton is a writer but her ex-husband William remains a hard man to read.
William she confesses has always been a mystery to me. Another mystery is why the two have
remained connected after all these years. They just are. So Lucy is both surprised and not
surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered
family secret—one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people
closest to us. What happens next is nothing less than another example of what Hilary Mantel has
called Elizabeth Strout’s perfect attunement to the human condition.” There are fears and
insecurities simple joys and acts of tenderness and revelations about affairs and other
spouses parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about
the quiet forces that hold us together—even after we’ve grown apart. At the heart of this story
is the indomitable voice of Lucy Barton who offers a profound lasting reflection on the very
nature of existence. This is the way of life ” Lucy says: the many things we do not know until
it is too late.” ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review The
Washington Post Time Vulture She Reads
