Reading Lucy: Summary

“Reading Lucy”, is a essay written by ,well renowned writer, Jennifer Egan. In her essay Jennifer described how she formed a ‘friendship’ with a woman named Lucille Kolkin, a navy yard worker during World War II. While researching for a novel about the Brooklyn Navy Yard ,Jennifer met Lucille at the Brooklyn Historical Society. She met Lucille through a  series of letters that Lucille wrote to her husband Alfred, a navy soldier, in 1944. Jennifer explains that their relationship was strictly professional at first but as she went on reading Lucille’s letters she began to relate to her life, and found her to be an intriguing and enjoyed reading Lucille’s letters. Jennifer went on to say that after she Google searched Lucille and discovered her death she did not read Lucille’s letters with the same hopeful excitement she once did. When she finished Lucille’s letters she contemplated weather or not she should call Lucille’s remaining relatives to find out more about Lucille’s life after the letters stopped, even though it did not relate to her research. But when she reads Alfred’s letters to Lucille she was pleased and decided to let Alfred and Lucille live remainder of their lives after the letters stopped. The summary ends with a few hopeful lines from Alfred’s last letter to Lucille, ” I’m looking forward to those five days together Lucy, I want us to cram a lot of things into it. It’ll be easy if we plan it a little bit… You’ll see!”