From the article of “Reading Lucy”, we see Jennifer Egan learn about the history by the old letters from the past, For example, she put the letter about the African American girl on the article, showing the problem in the society in that period. “Not only does she have to fight as a woman, but as a Negro”. From this we have little background about the civil right movement. Moreover, even Lucy went to the college, but she still cannot get a better job than a man does, which showed the inequality of the races.

Lucy is just an extraordinary person that Egan interest in, they live in different time period; however, both of them are Brooklynite. Egan strongly believes that Lucy and she have powerful friendship, even though she knows Lucy well, but Lucy knows nothing about her. They both have similar life style, such as the same method to write “to-do lists”; they “both worked hard and struggled to find time for practical necessities like cleaning and shopping… because of these connection, bonding Egan and Lucy, both of them develop the friendship over the time difference.

From this article, Egan conveyed Lucy’s story by her letters to her husband. And this not only conveyed the life of Lucy to the audiences, but also the life of Americans in 1944 and the problems on the society that people facing.