Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
If you’re a fan of Elizabeth Strout, you will find Tell Me Everything irresistible. Though it can be read as a stand-alone, it will be best appreciated by fans who have read her other novels.
The cast is all here … many gathered from her previous novels: Olive, Lucy, William, Bob, Margaret, and Jim, they’re all here.
There are some new additions. Matt, an odd young man who has no friends and a fetish for painting nude pregnant women, is the key suspect in his mother’s murder. Bob, who you may remember, believed he accidentally killed his father, takes the case pro-bono, for obvious reasons. Bob has an ability to draw the young man out of his shell and into the world.
Olive and Lucy come together to share stories. Olive is ninety now and living in a senior facility. One day, she calls upon Lucy, an author, to come over so that she can tell her mother’s story. The two women gather regularly to exchange stories of the “unrecorded lives” in their circles. Olive is her usual acerbic self, of course. We would expect nothing less.
There is a revelation between brothers Jim and Bob, whom you will remember as the protagonists in The Burgess Boys. The revelation leads to a rift between Jim and his son Larry, who has only recently embraced his father, after a life-long grudge.
Bob and Lucy continue their walks. Talking and sharing about their lives. Partnered to other people, the two friends find solace and companionship with each other – and someone who listens when their partners are self-absorbed.
What is the point, you may wonder? What is Strout saying to us?
Olive, true to character declares “People suffer. They Live. They have hope. They love. And they still suffer.”
So why does Strout write about these unremarkable, ordinary people? Because they are us, and so often, the unremarkable are invisible, and Strout seems to be telling us that each of these lives matter … why else would she be writing about them … and by association she is telling us that our lives matter, too.
This is Lin Salisbury with Superior Reviews. Listen to my author interviews on Superior Reads, the fourth Thursday of the month at 7pm and the following Saturday at 6am.
