AMY AND ISABELLE: ELIZABETH STROUT

Since I really liked Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE,  I thought I would try her earlier novel, AMY AND ISABELLE which, as I was reading it, was vaguely familiar, suggesting I just may have read it when it came out but it didn't matter as I remembered little if any of it.  It's set in Shirley Falls, a small New England town, in the early1960's I would guess though there's no mention of the Vietnam was so it may be earlier, late 1950's.  It's the story of a repressed, frightened, insecure single mother, harboring a secret that she thinks will destroy her reputation and her daughter, Amy, a lonely child, , fifteen years old, solitary and shy, who grows up quickly one hot, steamy summer.  Isabelle works as the secretary to Avery Clark,  the owner of a mill, setting her apart from the rest of the office ladies, perhaps above them, or so she often thinks.  She has no real friends, holds herself apart from the gossip filled office help and cannot quite make friends with the inhabitants of Oyster Bay, the wealthier part of town.  She loves Amy, wants to protect her, but cannot understand her, especially as she becomes a teenager.  Both Amy and Isabelle are isolated, alone, even innocent as the novel begins.  But this relationship, between mother and daughter, alters irrevocably when Avery Clark, Isabelle's boss, finds Amy naked in a car with her math teacher, Mr. Robertson.

I guess that would change most mother/daughter relationships.  Isabelle, disbelieving that her daughter would have a sexual relationship with an adult, with anyone, in anger, takes scissors to her daughter's hair, ruining perhaps forever whatever connection the two had achieved.  Things go from bad to worst over the summer, neither talking though they spend both the day together at work and at home.  Things break when Amy, along with her boy friend Paul, discover the body of a young girl who has been missing for months.  Finally, Isabelle forgets her anger, empathizes with her daughter's terrible experience, embraces her, and things thaw somewhat.  And, miraculously, Isabelle opens up to her colleagues at work, especially Fat Bev, unburdens herself of a long held secret, that Amy was a love child fathered by her father's best friend when Isabelle was just seventeen years old.  She also tells Amy the truth about her past.  From this point on, Isabelle's life changes; she now has friends, things seem more bearable with Amy though they will never be fast friends.  And the novel ends with little coda, as we learn little about what happens to Amy, and as for Isabelle, she marries the kind pharmacist in town and seems to have lived 'somewhat' happily ever after.