“Reading Lucy” Summary

Reading Lucy by Jennifer Egan is about Jennifer Egan’s research of a woman named Lucy’s who worked during World War II in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Lucy’s was married to her husband Albert Kolkin a year after they met, and since he was in the navy, she traveled around a lot. During her time working in the navy yard, shipfitting school & the shipfitting shop, she wrote letters, almost daily, to Albert explaining what was going on and how she was. She was truly in love with her husband, throwing in kisses at the end of her letters. Lucy considered herself a shipfitter, which means third class. She would lay out the metal structural parts of ship and stencil them to be cut out by another woman. Since men were drafted into the war, women worked there and by January of 1945, 4,657 women worked in the navy yard. She was excellent at her job. Being a timekeeper, she got to spend time writing letters to Albert every two weeks. She was in her mid-twenties and Albert was much older but he liked reading her letters because he wanted to figure out what her life would turn out to be like. Later on in the years, Albert would be shipped to Del Monte and Lucy would move with him and work as a waitress. The letter would stop for about a year time until he shipped out in 1945. Before he shipped out, he sent a letter to Lucy stating they have a lot of thing to cram in before he leave, but he would miss her dearly.