Just finished reading Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. In the latest instalment of the Strout Literary Universe, two worlds collide when Lucy Barton strikes up a tentative kinship with Olive Kitteridge. Despite having these two heavyweights in the novel, the plot mainly centres around another Strout mainstay, Bob Burgess, as he takes on a case of a hermit accused of killing his own mother. While the events roll through the novel like a quiet tide, Strout observes the hidden lives of people. The main motif of the book is the secret histories that everyone bears.
I truly believe that any person you meet walking down the street has a book’s worth in them, and I’m so humbled by writers like Strout who make it their life’s work to write some of them into existence. Those quiet unspoken moments: falling in love with a stranger through a glance, the secrets we take to our grave; these are what make up the novel.
As this is the latest in a long line of books featuring these characters, Strout moves through the world confidently. In some ways, her writing has become a caricature of itself. Everything is dialled up, and Strout follows the reader’s lead, giving us everything we want. In a strange way, I didn’t really mind this. It may be on the nose, but if something is SO good, you’d be a fool not to want more of it. It is books like Tell Me Everything that make you quietly grateful to be alive, not just because you get to read them, but because you feel part of a shared human experience that’s both ordinary and profound. For those who lead an exhausting examined life, Strout is the sort of writer that validates those feelings and with her sparing, exiguous prose. You’re not crazy, you’re just alive in a mad world. We can only hope Strout continues writing books like this that help us make sense of it all.
Massive shout out to my boyfriend for the Daunt Books subscription gift, and for this gem of a book. You somehow made the terrifying prospect of turning 30 feel like the start of an exciting chapter, and cured my reading slump in one fell swoop. A real hero.
