Good News!

I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Strout and most of her books. I didn't love Amy and Isabelle, and I think Abide With Me and The Burgess Boys only earned 3.5 stars, but for me, the rest of her books are easily four and five stars. 

Tell Me Everything was published on September 10, and it was probably my most anticipated book this year. I got excited when the cover design was revealed, and even more excited when I requested and was approved for an ARC. Once I had the book in my hands I wanted to read it in one sitting but somehow still savor it to make it last.

Strout tells us more of Bob Burgess' story; remember him from The Burgess Boys? But the book is about so much more and so many more people, including Bob's wife, Margaret, and his first wife, Pam. It's also the story of how Bob comes to defend a local man accused of murdering his mother. There is a small mystery about who committed the crime, but it's more about the changes that Bob helps the accused man make in his life. Bob's brother Jim also appears in this novel with some important revelations for Bob.

Bob meets Lucy Barton frequently so they can take walks together. Their relationship is one of good friends who share a special emotional intimacy until possibly, they don't. This part was a bit worrisome for me, but it all came together wonderfully at the end. In one of my favorite developments, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge get together to tell each other stories about "unrecorded lives". I will be thinking about these stories and their meanings for a long time.

I greatly enjoyed revisiting many of Strout's past characters, especially Olive, Lucy, and Bob, and their interactions with each other now that many of them live in Crosby, Maine. Because Strout has caught the reader up on many favorite characters, this book feels as if it could be an ending to the Lucy Barton series. There were parts of the book that felt as if they might be moving too slowly, but Elizabeth Strout's novels have never been page-turners or plot-driven. They are stories of humanity, love, loss, empathy, and true human connections, and in these respects, this is one of Strout's best. 

Lucy stood up and pulled on her coat. "Those are my stories," she said, and then bent down to put her boots back on. "But you're right. They are stories of loneliness and love." Then she picked up her bag and said, "And the small connections we make in this world if we are lucky." And then to Olive's amazement, Lucy said, smiling at her with a gentleness on her face, "And I feel that way about you. A connection. Love. So thank you."
Olive said, "Wait." As Lucy turned, Olive said, "Well, phooey. I feel connected to you too. So there. " She stuck out her tongue.

 

Much of my enjoyment of this book was tied to the fact that Strout brings Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge together for some great conversations. Despite the fact that she can be a curmudgeon, Olive is one of my very favorite fictional characters. We get to know her in Olive Kitteridge and see her struggles to become “oh, just a tiny—tiny—bit better as a person" in Olive, Again. So what's the good news I was referring to?

I read this interview with Strout in The Guardian last weekend and then I got to the good news:

Any chance you’ll be revisiting Lucy, Bob and Olive?
I don’t know; but I do know that no matter what happens, Olive Kitteridge will never die on my watch.

I was half afraid that Olive was going to die at the end of Tell Me Everything, but she does not. Now I can keep hoping that maybe I'll get to visit with Olive again, especially because I now know that Elizabeth Strout will keep her alive. That's the best news I've heard in a long time!