Words, whether a person can speak them or is willing to speak them, are the cornerstone of Dear Lucy, an inventive debut novel by Julie Sarkissian about a young, innocent girl with cognitive limitations and her relationship with those around her. Lucy, who knows "I don't have the right words for things," can't understand why she has been abandoned by her mother and sent to live with Mister and Missus, an older couple who own a farm. Lucy's job, in which she takes great pride, is to carefully collect the eggs for breakfast each morning. "The farm," says Lucy, "is about taking the life from something and putting it somewhere else."
Also living on the farm is Samantha, a pregnant teenager who befriends Lucy, yet tells contradictory stories about her past and the baby's father. When Samantha gives birth and her baby suddenly vanishes, Lucy sets off on a quest, determined to reunite Samantha and her missing child.
Lucy's limited, stream-of-conscious point of view keeps readers off balance. Her voice and the abstract structure of the narrative sweep readers up, drawing them in to the unexpected surprises of a story set in an elusive time and place. This allows Sarkissian to increase the inherent level of suspense by slowly divvying out plot points and revealing the truth of the story, piece by piece. While the plot and language are sparse and economical, this is an ambitious, complex novel offering themes about the fragility of life, love and being loved. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines