Elizabeth Strout

Review: Tell Me Everything

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Cover image of "Tell Me Everything" by Elizabeth Strout

Tell Me Everything

Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout. Random House (ISBN: 9780593446119) 2025.

Summary: While Bob Burgess represents a murder suspect, he and those around him tell stories of their and other lives.

I understand that the working title of this work was The Book of Bob. Strout opens the book describing him, a description we see bearing out in this book:

“This is the story of Bob Burgess, a tall, heavyset man who lives in the town of Crosby, Maine, and he is sixty-five years old at the time we are speaking of him. Bob has a big heart, but he does not know that about himself; like many of us, he does not know himself as well as he assumes to, and he would never believe he had anything worthy in his life to document. But he does; we all do.”

One of the main threads of the story is the relationship Bob, a semi-retired criminal defense lawyer develops with Matt Beach. Matt was a reclusive artist who cared for his mother Gloria Beach. He came home to find her missing and called the police. But she wasn’t found until the following March in a quarry pool near a missing rental vehicle. Gloria Beach was a miserable person for most people to be around, nicknamed “Bitch Ball” when she’d work in the school cafeteria. Suspicions focused on Matt though there was no hard evidence tying him to her murder. Matt’s sister, Diana, a successful school counselor asks Bob to become his lawyer. He is perhaps the first to listen to Matt and becomes his friend, even staying with him for several nights when he is particularly troubled. He discovers Matt’s artistic gifts. That’s the murder mystery part of this novel.

The novel revolves around the telling and unfolding of life stories. The other thread running through the novel are the walks Bob and author Lucy Barton take together. “Tell me everything” is the refrain describing their conversations. Bob talks about his brother Jim and his own troubled past, having accidentally killed his father as a child playing in the family call, accidentally putting it in gear, rolling over his father. Lucy discusses her troubled relationship with her daughters. She also recounts her conversations with Olive Kitteridge. Although ninety-one, Olive’s memory is sharp, and she shares with Lucy stories of “unrecorded lives.” Soon, Lucy reciprocates, although Olive doesn’t always appreciate the stories.

Lucy is back together with her ex, William. Bob is husband to the Unitarian minister, Margaret Estaver. There are no conflicts between them but in some ways Bob and Margaret have grown apart. People, even William and Margaret, see Bob and Lucy as “just friends” but we sense the emotional intimacy grow between them through the book, a crisis Bob confesses to his brother Jim.

Bob and Jim grow closer in the book when Jim’s wife Helen dies. Jim comes to terms with what a poor husband, father, and brother had been. He claims he was the one who put the car in gear that day. Bob and his sister remember things differently. In the end, it is uncertain, but Bob bears the marks of this on his life. Lucy describes him as a “sin eater,” one who absorbs the hard stories of others while caring for them.

And the point of all the telling of stories? Lucy expresses it to Olive this way, “People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.” But we also see in the telling of stories characters growing in self-awareness and depth–Matt Beach, Margaret, Jim, and indeed, Bob and Lucy become more fully themselves. Indeed, one of the things Bob experiences is the discovery through the words of others the “worthiness” of his life.

One comes away from this Elizabeth Strout novel with the sense that there is no such thing as an insignificant life. Even Gloria Beach had lovingly cared for Matt as a child when his life was in danger. And not unlike my reaction to Theo of Golden, I found myself wanting to be more like this Bob. Both men affirmed the worth of others simply by noticing and naming that worthiness. This is not a small thing, it seems.

The Weekly Wrap: May 3-9

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The Weekly Wrap: May 3-9

Thanks, Mom!

More than anyone, I owe the fact that I am a reader to my mom. She never, to my memory, encouraged me to read. Rather, she loved to read and she shared that love with me. She was diligent in her care for our home and for us. But whenever she took a break, often over lunch or in the evening, she’d be reading.

As soon as I could, I shared my books with her. I’d tell her about the latest baseball book I was reading. And she’d tell me about Taylor Caldwell or Susan Howatch or Leon Uris. And as I got older, I read some of those books as well.

We had a house full of books…and I was always free to explore the bookshelves. I can’t think of my mom censoring my reading–even when I picked up some of her racier books!

We also had a bookcase of encyclopedias. And you’d often find me camped in front of those with a volume in my lap. I’d be reading an article to learn about something that caught my interest.

It was a cruel turn that resulted in her losing much of her vision to macular degeneration in her seventies. She hung on, using magnifiers and devices as long as she could. Audiobooks were in their infancy. Having reached my seventies, it’s one of my great fears that I’ll lose my vision. Maybe I read so much to read while I can. And I’m religious about eye checkups.

However, I’ve had a life filled with the joy of reading, bookstores, libraries, and lots of conversations with other book lovers. And I owe it all to mom. Thank you for imparting your love of books to me. I’ll always be grateful. I love you, Mom, and I’ll always remember you.

Five Articles Worth Reading

If you are buying books for mom, you might be hitting the bookstore today to look for something. Here are a couple lists of recommendations you might look over. One is from the New York Times and offers recommendations by genres. Publishers Weekly offers an uncategorized list of ten books.

For some of us, we grieve mothers who are no longer with us. Simon Rogers, who has written a book on our Google searches, addresses the ways we turn to the internet for solace in “ ‘The Data Shows We’re Never Truly Alone.’ What Our Online Searches Say About Loss.“

Motherhood has also been the focus of scholarly study. So JSTOR, in “Motherhood in America: A Reading List,” offers a selection of the scholarship on motherhood.

Elizabeth Strout has a new book out. Her books are both critically acclaimed and bestsellers. I’ve read and enjoyed a couple of them. Adam Begley explores “The Secret of Elizabeth Strout’s Appeal.”

If you’ve looked at antique or fine books, you may have noticed the beautiful endpapers, made by a process called “marbling.” In “The Secret Art of Marbling” Francky Knapp takes us through the meticulous process of marbling.

Quote of the Week

Thomas Pynchon turned 89 yesterday, May 8. He was born in 1937. He warns us of one of the ways people practice the art of deflection:

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I often find that book awards name books I’ve never read, or even heard of. Not so the Pulitzers. Among the winners are Jill Lepore’s We the People, on my TBR and There is No Place for Us by Brian Goldstone which I reviewed last year. Here is a list of the awardees.

I tend to remember more of the music and art of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Paul Elie’s The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s explores a decade I lived through but think less of. It’s a fascinating study of artists ranging from Warhol to Leonard Cohen to Madonna and the “crypto-religious” themes that run through their lives and work.

Would you consider it worth it if you made it to the major leagues in baseball, only to play in one game. In The Cup of Coffee Club, Jacob Kornhauser tells the story of eleven players who played exactly one game in the majors. It’s a story of all they went through to get there, and how they came to terms as they realized this was their “one, brief shining moment.”

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Sabino Chialà, Silence and Speaking Freely

Tuesday: Daniel Taylor, The Prodigal of Leningrad

Wednesday: Lesslie Baynes, Between Interpretation and Imagination

Thursday: Jacob Kornhauser, The Cup of Coffee Club

Friday: Beth Felker jones, Why I Am Protestant

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap  for May 3-9.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Review: Lucy by the Sea

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Lucy by the Sea, Elizabeth Strout. New York: Random House, 2022.

Summary: Lucy Barton goes with her ex-husband William to a house on the coast of Maine during the COVID lockdown of 2020.

On a premonition, Lucy Barton cancelled her book tour in Europe. Then her ex-husband William, a parasitologist, shows up at her apartment and insists that she pack up and leave with him to get out of New York City to an out of the way place in Maine. It is early March of 2020 and COVID-19 has arrived in New York City. William has followed the epidemic and can foresee what is in store. He wants to get Lucy and their daughters out of the city. Reluctantly, she closes up her place and goes with him to an old house with character on the coast of Maine, found for them by an old friend, Bob Burgess.

Much of the book is Lucy’s interior monologue. We go through those early weeks that we all remember of hearing of the rapidly climbing number of infections, of friends getting sick, of worries about family, particularly Lucy’s younger daughter, who wants to stay in New York with her loser boyfriend. We re-live socially distanced and masked encounters. And we remember lives reduced to daily routines of household life, Zoom calls, walks outdoors, punctuated by the news. At points, like many of us, Lucy wonders if she is losing her mind, or at least her memory. We relive that growing recognition both of how bad things were and that this wouldn’t be solved by a few weeks of lockdown.

Sharing a house with your ex raises all kinds of memories for both of them. William had gone on to a number of affairs and failed marriages. Chastened by age and health issues, he takes stock of all the failures in his life. For both of them, as they watch one daughter in an unhealthy relationship and another unable to have children and going through a rocky period in their marriage, they relive their own failed relationship as they try to offer what help parents can and cannot do, as they re-negotiate their relationships with their adult children, and with each other. I will leave you to find out how being in lockdown together works out for them.

Bob Burgess, whose wife is the town minister, becomes Lucy’s sounding board as they take walks together. Like so many of us, Lucy has to sort out all her feelings about those who don’t wear masks, including a sister who has converted to a conservative form of Christianity, who nearly dies but doesn’t. for all those who support the current president, for those who refuse the vaccine including a woman who she works with at a food pantry.

What is striking is that we see both her interior reactions and a posture of listening, of just trying to understand and not change. Coming to terms with some of the wounds of her own past, she finds herself in a place of gentleness with others, something I wish I could have achieved at times during this period.

Strout portrays people who grew during the isolation of lockdown. They examined their own and other’s flawed and broken and yet unique lives, and the efforts to love as best as they could. They nurtured relationships even as it appeared the country was trying to tear itself apart.

This is not a book to read if you don’t want to relive those years. But I found that the reading reminded me of my own journey of trying to make sense of our radically changed lives and country. And I got to do this with this delightful woman, Lucy Barton. I wonder to what degree she is an alter ego of Elizabeth Strout. What I do know is that I’ve loved her Olive Kitteridge books and this as well (Olive makes a kind of cameo appearance!). And there was the delightful discovery, in writing this review, that there are several previous Lucy Barton books. You can bet that I will be on the lookout for them!

Review: Olive, Again

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Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout. New York: Random House, 2020.

Summary: The sequel to Olive Kitteridge, an older Olive on her second marriage after Henry died, the indignities and transitions of aging, coming to terms with relationships with children and others, and the unique ways Olive shows up, helpfully, when you’d least expect it.

Olive Kitteridge is back. Elizabeth Strout has given us another exquisite set of stories revolving around Olive Kitteridge, the retired school teacher, always of an opinion, frank, sometimes to abrasiveness, and surprisingly sympathetic when it matters most.

This is an older Olive, and many of the stories revolve around the challenges of aging. She gives voice to the experience of many, marrying a second time after her first husband, Henry, had died. She married Jack Kennison, a retired Harvard professor, exiled to main after being exiled under the cloud of sexual harassment allegations. We experience how good it is to share a bed with someone again, and how hard. There are the bodily changes, and compensations–pedicures when no longer able to trim one’s nails, for example. Others are harder, including a heart attack, needing to wear Depends for incontinence, and falls.

Several stories focus around relationships with children, including a visit to Olive by Philip and his wife Ann and their son Henry. There are the realizations of the shortcomings of parenting, the compensations when kids nevertheless turn out to be decent human beings, and the reconciliations, such as when Ann opens up about the feeling of being a “motherless child” and Olive recognizes that this must be how Philip has felt as well. And there are the shifts in relationship, as parent becomes increasingly dependent on child, as is the case as Olive suffers a heart attack and a fall, and must move out of the big house Jack has left to a senior facility.

Then there are the relationships, some with former students. At a baby shower, Olive ends up delivering a baby, exercising her common sense with the laboring mother who is trying to make it through a tedious shower. Perhaps the most touching of the collection is how Olive walks with a cancer patient, a former student, as she undergoes chemo, the avoidance of other friends, and the fear of death. I found this perhaps the most powerful of the collection. Another case turns out less well, as an encounter with a former student turned poet laureate ends up with the encounter memorialized, not favorably, in a poem.

Strout gives us an unblinking portrayal through Olive and the circle around her of the journey of aging, the joys, the vicissitudes, the resolutions, and the unresolved. In Olive, we see a character who grows even as she ages, in self-understanding and empathy, even as she remains the indomitable Olive we’ve come to know.

Review: Olive Kitteridge

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Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout. New York: Random House, 2008.

Summary: A collection of short stories set in a small coastal village in Maine, centering around an aging and abrasive middle school teacher, Olive Kitteridge.

Olive Kitteridge is characterized at one point in this book as having “a way about her that was absolutely without apology.” Her son at one point described her moods as capricious and that she never accepted responsibility for the ways she affected others. She was tall and imposing, irascible and difficult. And yet. She could cut through niceties to help a young man ready to take his life, or truly sympathize with a widow while her own husband was a vegetable. What you saw was what you got, and yet there were hidden depths to her that could catch you by surprise.

Olive Kitteridge and her husband Henry live in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine. Olive is a middle school math teacher and Henry a pharmacist. Elizabeth Strout develops Olive’s character through a series of chronologically arranged short stories featuring different people in the town. Olive is not in every one of them but recurs throughout the book, intersecting with a number of the characters as she retires from teaching, sharing life with Henry, a most accommodating husband, as they go through life’s changes and grief’s, including a son for whom they built a house, only for him to move across country at his wife’s behest, only for her to divorce him, and then for him to return to New York and a new marriage. Olive grieves so much she won’t drive past the house, leading to an improbable adventure at the local ER.

The stories explore the challenges and comforts of marital love, the infidelities of mind and body of different villagers, including Henry at one point for his pharmacist assistant Denise. There are heartbreaks and verbal wounds that are not easily healed. But one thing you will never find is hypocrisy from Olive. One of the highlights was when Olive overhears her new daughter-in-law making fun of her clothes. Most of us would fume and pretend we had not heard. Olive goes into the daughter-in-law’s closet and deviously ruins several articles of clothing. She can be maddeningly matter-of-fact in her acceptance of life’s hardships. What else ought one expect of life?

Despite all the flaws and foibles and failures of individuals, Strout portrays a community that somehow coheres, that is there for each other in the hardest moments. She creates a place and a character rooted in that place in Olive–the houses she builds, the tulips she plants, the donut shop she and Henry loved to get donuts from. Olive and the others endure loss and glimpse their mortality, making there way through life and finding what comfort they can in each other.

In the end, we see a character who seemed utterly certain of herself, who does not change, but turns her honesty upon herself and comes to more settled terms with the person she is, and the possibilities of her remaining life. There is both fine writing and fine insight into the human condition here.