My life is full of stories. And I know yours probably is too. Stories that I write, stories that I read, stories that I tell and those that are told to me. I guess that’s why I loved the latest Elizabeth Strout book, Tell Me Everything, so much. It is all about the stories.
Of course, Tell Me Everything, like all novels, is a story told by the author. In this case Elizabeth Strout. Set in Maine, over four seasons from fall through to summer, it features some of her most beloved characters: Lucy Barton, Bob Burgess, Lucy’s family, Bob’s wife and brother, and Olive Kitterage.
The story of the novel circles around Bob Burgess primarily, but not exclusively. Bob and Lucy Barton walk together regularly, and when they walk they talk. So the novel is, in part, about their conversations. And it’s about the stories they tell each other.
But the plot also steps back from Bob’s and Lucy’s conversations to tell their stories directly to us. The story of their relationship and how it alters and shifts. Stories about Bob’s family crises, his brother, and their shared past, and about Bob’s wife, and even his ex-wife, Pam. And it’s also about a man called Matthew Beach who is suspected of killing his mother, and whose case Bob, who is a lawyer, takes on. We hear Matthew’s story, the story of Matthew’s sister Diana, and the story that Bob unearths about their mother, Gloria Beach, and her past.
The novel is a veritable web of stories all of which connect to Bob Burgess in some way. Like all good stories, the stories told about these characters are about love and pain, about kindness and violence and despair, about survival and defeat and rebirth, and about isolation and connection.
But the stories that Strout paints for us have more to tell us than just relating tales of pain and love. They also show us how perspective matters. We might share a past with someone, but our perspective on the stories of the past can change the narrative. And sometimes learning someone else’s perspective on a shared event can change the course of our lives. This is true for several characters in the novel, most tellingly for Bob Burgess himself.
That’s why I believe telling our stories to each other is so important. We are, all of us, all about the stories. Our own stories, the stories of people we know, and those we don’t know but know about through more stories. How do we begin to know each other if we don’t tell our stories? If others don’t hear our stories?
Which leads me to my favourite part of Tell Me Everything, the part where Lucy Barton’s and Olive Kitterage’s stories intersect. Olive and Lucy’s relationship is all about the stories.
Olive Kitterage is now over ninety, and in the novel she asks Bob Burgess to tell Lucy Barton that she would like Lucy to visit her. Lucy does. Olive knows that Lucy is a writer, and Olive has a story to tell her. Several stories in fact. As Olive says, Lucy can write them down, or not, but at least Olive has passed them on.
After Olive’s first story, Lucy begins to visit her quite regularly. And on each visit one tells a story to the other. They are remarkable stories about seemingly unremarkable people living their lives. As Lucy says on her first visit to Olive: “‘Jesus Christ. All these unrecorded lives, and people just live them.'”
That line, “‘All these unrecorded lives, and people just live them.'” stayed with me. Because I have always been interested in the unrecorded stories of others. Everyone has an interesting story. Our stories make us who we are.
I think of my friends and family and how I see each of them as a collage. As if their identity, as far as I’m concerned, is a kind of work of art, made up of bits and pieces of our shared experiences, things they have said and done, jokes we have shared, and stories they have told me about their lives before we met.
My view of my mum is partially created by the stories and anecdotes she told me about her youth. About her life as a young wife and mother. And about the challenges she faced in her life before I was born. These stories are as much a part of her identity for me as the experiences we shared.
Because we have known each other since we were children, I think of my friend Debbie as an amalgam of all the stories we have shared over the years, the embarrassing or sketchy things we got up to in our youth, driving to dances in the country in the back of someone’s truck, or hitching-hiking to the mall. I know all her stories, all about her parents, her failures and successes, as she knows mine. That’s what I see when we meet. Not the woman someone else might see, a nicely dressed, grey-haired, sixty-something woman. But a collage of the past sixty-two years since we first met.
When I see my friend Marina, I might comment on her new coat, like I did the other day. We might talk about what we have been doing over the Christmas holidays. But beneath the small talk, our friendship is coloured by earlier times we have shared. Like the Montreal shopping trip when I spoke really bad French to the girl in the Tim Horton’s drive-thru. And we laughed so hard afterward. And during, I might add. Or the night she swanned around our hotel room, on another Montreal shopping trip, in her nightie and the new shoes she’d purchased. Or I think about the painful moments we shared when we worked together, that I won’t get into. Or her story of her dad, back in the eighties, chopping onions in the kitchen of his restaurant and singing Boy George’s “Karma Chameleon” in his Lebanese accent.
I love that story and she tells it so perfectly, imitating his accent with love and good humour. That story tells me as much about my friend as it does about her dad. Marina and I don’t have as long a history as friends as Debbie and me, so her stories help me to know her better, to see what she cares about that I might not have otherwise discovered.
You know we all have books and writers who speak to us. And Elizabeth Strout’s work always, always speaks to me. As if her books are crafted with me in mind.
Part of the reason is that many of her books are set in small town Maine. So much of life in Maine is similar to life in New Brunswick. The small towns. The countryside. The ocean. The hard winters. And the poverty. Sometimes something small that Strout mentions strikes a chord with me. Like the mayflowers in one of Olive’s stories. Lucy didn’t know about mayflowers and had to ask Olive. But I knew. We used to pick them when I was a kid.
But mostly what speaks to me in Strout’s novels, especially in this one, is its verisimilitude. Its likeness to truth. You know that there are people just like the people in Strout’s novel. People living their unrecorded lives. Lives full of challenge, hardship, and complications. Lives in which someone might be misunderstood by everyone, except those who know their stories.
You know, my mum was one of the earliest readers of this blog. And she told me one day that she felt she knew me so much better, as an adult, from reading the stories I wrote. Because the things I sometimes talked about in my posts were things she and I had never talked about. That meant a lot to me. That she read my blog and learned about me.
She commented to me one day that I had turned my stepfather Lloyd into “quite a character.” I had recently written several posts about my step-father. “But everything I wrote about really happened,” I replied. “Yes,” she said, “But I never knew you looked at it that way.”
You see, she never saw him as I saw him. He was her husband. But to me, he was the kind, rock-solid adult who made me feel safe and secure. Who wasn’t angry when I called home in the middle of the night because I had run out of gas on the highway, but who got up, pulled on his clothes and came out to rescue me. I might add that Mum was angry at that, probably rightly so. But not Lloyd. And although she was there that night, she’d never seen the events from my perspective.
Photo courtesy of Connie Lagerlöf.
Of course our own stories are real, not fiction. The stories of our own lives, and the lives of those we know, or maybe only know about through stories we have heard, do not necessarily have satisfying endings, endings that wrap up the characters’ struggles with the satisfaction we feel when we read fiction. Because fiction is a construct.
And although Elizabeth Strout’s characters might experience a resolution to their grief, a rebirth when they find love, or a way forward with a situation that they know has no real resolution, we know deep down that if they were real people living unrecorded lives their stories would not end there. Because that resolved grief would after a time be followed by further grief or unhappiness; the new-found love might persevere, but it would have to navigate through stormy waters at some point. Real life does not stop when the book ends.
I know that this might seem a surprising first post of the new year. I made no resolutions. I did not sum up 2024. Or count my clothes, or the purchases I made over the past year, like I usually do.
That’s because since I finished Elizabeth Strout’s book last week, I’ve been consumed by it. And by the idea of the stories we tell and hear. The stories of “unrecorded lives” that might otherwise not be told. And how we are, all of us, all about the stories.
In fact, I had a story I wanted to tell you in this post. I thought I’d get to it. But it will have to wait for another time. Maybe I’ll start a series. An “all about the stories” series. Where the story is not used to explicate a point. But where the story is the point. What do you think?
By the way, Happy New Year.
P.S. Tell Me Everything is the latest in Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton series. If you haven’t read them all, you should. If only to get the fullest back story to this current title. Also Olive Kitterage and Olive Again are the two books in the series that feature the character of Olive Kitterage. The Burgess Boys is the novel that introduces Bob Burgess and his brother Jim.
P.P.S. The book link in this post is an affiliate link. If you make a purchase after clicking my link, I will earn a commission which helps to pay for the blog.
87 thoughts on “All About the Stories”
I love hearing people’s stories about their lives. Everybody has at least one tale that is surprising or shocking or fascinating, histories that make them a link in a chain. And we constantly replay our own stories, to ourselves as much as to others. Tales and their tellings may be what makes us such curious creatures on this planet.
You tell a great story yourself, Annie. I always enjoy reading your blog posts. 🙂
I enjoy all your posts but these are the ones I love . The philosophical ones . I’m looking forward to reading this book but have been preparing by working my way through all her others . I fell for Bob in The Burgess Boys , he’s a very endearing character & it will be great to spend more time with him – & Lucy & Olive . I’m currently part way through Isabelle & Amy , hoping for a reasonably happy ending ? I’m envious that you had your mum in your life long enough to learn more about her . I was in my late thirties when my mum died & living a busy life , too busy to sit & listen to all her stories . After following her family history & talking to her siblings I’ve learnt more but they weren’t Her Stories . So you were lucky there & can treasure that time .
More of your stories please & a very happy new year .
I read that Isabelle and Amy is not as good as Strout’s later novels. I await your opinion of it. I agree that I’m lucky that I heard so many of my mum’s stories, and my grandmother’s. I’ve loved hearing stories since I was a child. I know that Su wishes he’d sat still long enough to hear more about his grandmother who was what they called a “home child.” She came to Canada from England when she was 13 to live and work on a farm in Quebec. But he says he knows little else about her. Not even her maiden name.
Yes , I’m not keen on Isabelle & Amy – Not just me then . It’s quite dull at half way through . Having researched my own family history, I’m curious about Stu’s grandmother . There’s obviously no marriage records showing her maiden name ?
I was planning to do an online search to see if I could find any records using his grandfather’s name. So many documents are online I might have good luck.
I have just finished The Grey Wolf, having saved it for a quiet time when I could allow myself to settle in and focus on “just reading”. As usual, after immersing myself in a Louise Penny book, I was feeling quite bereft and unanchored. Then I saw a great promotion for the Kobo version of Tell Me Everything. It is now next in line on my reading list. I find Elizabeth Strout somewhat melancholy, but I adore her earthy stories. As the snow piles up around me, your blog this week has inspired me to hunker down and take an illusionary trip to the little town in Maine.
I hope you enjoy your virtual visit to Maine, Cosette. Strout’s work can be melancholy, I agree. And as you say “earthy.” Bit like Maine itself.
P.S. Tell Me Everything is on sale on Amazon too.
I just started my 2025 Books Read, and this was my first entry. I had never read Strout, but now am planning a trip to the library to find the other ones that predated this. It has given me so much to mull over, I didn’t even start a new book last night, so I could ruminate on Tell Me Everything a bit longer. In these quiet winter times, this is just the kind of book I needed. Happy New Year to you and yours.
Thanks, Judy. One thing I particularly like about Strout’s work is that the so-called main character of her Lucy Barton series, is sometimes a secondary character as Strout focuses on other characters, like in her book Anything Is Possible which is the follow-up to My Name is Lucy Barton.
Tell Me Everything was the very best book I have read in a long time. It stayed with me for a long time after I finished it. I plan to re-read it again soon.
Me too, Nancy. I may go back and reread Anything Is Possible next.
Yes, please DO start an “all about the stories” series. I loved this post, and I will save it. (But don’t stop the fashion ones! 🙂 )
I will, thanks, Judy. And don’t worry … the fashion content is not going away. 🙂
You really hit it out of the park with this post!!!! Now I know why I have loved Elizabeth Strout’s books from Day One!! Thank you for your insight and willingness to share. I felt as if I was “falling into” your beautiful words. May your 2025 be filled with peace, joy and good health.
Thanks so much, Jan. Hope your 2025 is lovely too.
I couldn’t read another book for a month after reading “Tell Me Everything” because I was consumed by it, and thought it about it for weeks. Such a great post, Sue – I understand more fully why I loved it so.
Thanks, Kathie. I was kind of thinking of the paper collages you made a few years ago when I compared people I know to collages. I loved your collages.
Elizabeth Strout is an amazing storyteller and so are you
Tell Me Everything ( and Oh, William! on the second place) is my favourite book by her,a masterpiece.It simply flows.. life has highs and lows-and just is.
I love hearing stories,reading stories,telling stories……two things will stay with me today,your mother’s knowing you more through this blog and your description what we have with friendships
My mother will be 89 this year- she said once something similar about her old hairdresser- she still went there because of everything they both were once
This is a perfect post,thank you
Dottoressa
Ah, thanks so much. Love your mum’s comment about her hairdresser. Both Stu and I enjoyed hearing your stories when we were in Zagreb. Stu still makes a comment about the “tights” every now and then. 🙂
I liked a woman who married my husband’s best friend, but could never feel like I knew her despite many years of being thrown together. One day just the two of us did an outing to a town over an hour away. During the drive, for some reason, I said to her “tell me your story, start from the beginning.” It was spontaneous and I had no idea how she would respond or if that would be the end of our “friendship.” Luckily, she blinked a time or two and then started right in. It was fascinating. I gained so much insight into who she is and the people and things that shaped her. It took the return trip to finish her story and we have been “real” friends from that day on.
That’s a brilliant way to make friends. I got over my shyness years ago when meeting new people by simply asking them questions about themselves, rather than indulging in small talk to fill gaps. Listening is good.
I agree with Annie, Win. What a wonderful way to get to know someone.
I walked a picket line for five weeks back in the nineties, and I told Hubby that my goal was to hear everyone’s stories with whom I walked. I’d been working with these people for years but I didn’t know really who they were. I heard some very cool things on that line over the weeks.
Came for the style, stay here for the stories. I since you might be interested in writing your own fiction? Would love to read it.
Love that Sue. 🙂
I love Elizabeth Strout’s stories/books… have this one on reserve at the library and am re-reading Anything is Possible.
This might well be (for me) your best post ever.
Your words here are poignant, evocative and profound.
We all have stories…some are easier to share than others. Stories bring us closer and help us to understand what is happening to people that we might not really know that well.
Thank you Sue, thank you so much.
Leslie Lord
Hostess of the Humble Bungalow
Ah, thanks for the lovely comment, Leslie. Much appreciated.
You are an amazing writer and I look so forward opening my email and seeing I have your post to read. I love stories and you always have great ones to tell. I have a friend who always asks me to tell her a story. Guess mine are pretty interesting too. Happy to share 2025 with you all!
I love to tell stories… guess you do too. 🙂
Okay, you’ve inspired me again. To read Tell Me Everything, yes, but also, finally, to read the Olive Kitteredge books. I saw the Tv series before I’d heard much about Strout’s writing, and then when I started searching out her books, I somehow latched onto Lucy Barton. Time to catch up! Not going to be a hardship, I know 😉
Also, your thoughtful post brought to mind what Thomas King wrote, and spoke during his 2003 Massey Lecture Series: “The truth about stories is that’s all we are.” It’s a good little series of lectures. . .
Stu and I tried to watch the TV series and had to bail. I love Frances McDormand but she wasn’t my idea of Olive.
I love that line from Thomas King. In fact I love his writing in general. 🙂
It’s a funny thing how the mind weaves a picture of the person portrayed in a book. I can’t imagine anyone better to portray Olive Kitteridge than Frances McDormand. Then again she could read me the telephone directory and I’d be happy to listen!
I love seeing your blog post pop up in my email. Thank you for being here!
Thanks, Susan. Just what I wanted to hear today:)
I love your writing. I am 71 and find myself pondering life, people, their stories. I am struck by how people can live lives, have lots of stories, die, and relatively few know anything about them. I, too, love Elizabeth Strout’s writing. She makes you think and it stays with you. Always look forward to your posts, especially the ones regarding books. Thank you.
I know. It always troubles me that there are people whose stories will never be known.
Thank you for this amazing post, absolutely my favorite one ever. I have loved all the Elizabeth Strout books and will immediately start on Tell Me Everything. Your own writing is always so wonderful, and I love it when you discuss books and add your own philosophical observations as well. I would look forward to a series “all about the stories”. A great start to the New Year! Cheers and all the best to you!
Thanks so much, Gail. I’ve always tried to squeeze a story or two into my posts, but quite honestly the idea of just straight out telling stories makes me excited to begin.
Elizabeth Strout is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read all of her “real life”stories which stay with me for awhile. “Oh, William” is my favorite. The best line from this book is: “AM I THE ONLY ONE RUNNING OUT OF PEOPLE I LIKE”…and yes, it was in caps! When you’re 74, it certainly made me giggle.
What a perfect line. I love it.
Inspiring post! You are a great thinker – and help others to think well too!
When I clicked on your link though, it took me to a different book with the same title, but by Sarah Salway. I shall seek out the ‘real’ “Tell me everything”.
Sorry about that link, Abby. I think it’s probably because my “universal link” doesn’t know where you are. It should automatically send you to the U.S or the Canadian or the UK site. I think you are in Australia, though? I should see if I can add a conversion to the Australian site if one exists.
Wish I was in Australia just now – it’s freezing here (I’m in the UK!).
No worries re the link – I found all Strout’s books, and indeed am half way through “My name is Lucy Barton”, and thrilled to know now that I have her whole oeuvre (never used that word before!) ahead of me.
I liked My Name is Lucy Barton but it was my first Elizabeth Strout and I had a little difficulty at times getting used to her style. Bit as I read this one and all the others I loved her more and more. I so hope you enjoy all her books, Abby.
‘Where the story is not used to explicate a point. But where the story is the point’
Yes, please.
Okay! Thanks.
Stories become increasingly important to me as I get older. My parents and brother died more than 13 years ago and a beloved cousin died too young, in his twenties, 37 years ago. My best friend died 2 years ago after a decade of horrible early onset dementia. I remember them all through their wonderful stories. When I talk to others about them it’s their precious stories, and the stories I shared with them, that I pass on.
I’ve read very little of Elizabeth Strout’s work having abandoned one of the Lucy Barton novels after only a few chapters, and I also failed with Olive Kitteridge. I found Strout’s writing to be too bleak and lacking in warmth. Several friends as well as you and the commenters here speak highly of her writing. I will try again.
Strout’s writing can be bleak, I agree. I’m not sure why her bleakness does not depress me as does the bleakness of some other writers. Maybe it’s because it’s a bleakness I’ve experienced. Or because it’s so understated. It’s a quiet bleakness not described as out and out tragedy, like stories of war or violence.
I thank you for writing about Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel ( which I loved) plus mentioning the other books in the series (which I also loved.) The way you wrote about this was quite lovely. I love to read and often find characters that make an impression. Bob Burgess was one of those characters for me. I think I have a crush on him!
Ah. I love that, Linda. He sure seems like a wonderful man… I mean character… doesn’t he? 🙂
I loved Tell Me Everything. I finished it right before the holidays and was gutted when I did! Our stories facilitate the connection to others and understanding ourselves. Such a lively post and am so glad it wasn’t about the need for resolutions, fixing oneself through exercise or dieting! Ha ha! I am probably as good as I am going to get at 68. Here’s to another year for this lovely community.
Thanks, Kat. Here’s to another year of all the lovely readers, those who comment and those who don’t.
I was moved to tears reading this post. Your writing is wonder-full; what really moved me though were the words your mother spoke after reading your writings. I hadn’t really grieved publishing two books of poems after my mother died, realizing she wouldn’t read them. Such a beautiful intimate way to be known by our mothers.
I’m so happy that my mum read my blog. She learned to use a computer at age 84, and was quite proud of her ability to go online.
Love Elizabeth Strout’s books. I have not read her latest, my daughter has it and will be sending it to me. Her books mean even more to me because I grew up in Maine and lived there for 51 years.
After my Mom died, my sister and I became closer, (she is ten years older than me) we talk on the phone for hours. It is amazing how different our perspectives are on different family stories. It is like we lived in two different families. But, thankful we have those stories to share together.
I feel the same about my sisters who are five and seven years older than me. We had such different experiences growing up.
Your blog which I read with my breakfast this morning resonated with me so much. I find myself in a reflective mood, thinking particularly of my parents and the stories they told me and the stories which I never heard. My mother had a difficult upbringing, growing up during the 30s and losing her parents at a very early age. She and her two sisters were brought up by her grandmother and Mum loved to tell me about her childhood. Mum died unexpectedly in her mid 60s and there were plenty of stories left to tell but she ran out of time. I just wish I had asked her to tell me more stories while she was still alive.
I too love Elizabeth Strout’s books and her wonderful ‘extra-ordinary’ characters.
I think it’s wonderful that kids ask their parents and grandparents about their stories. They miss so much if they don’t do that.
I’ve read Tell Me Everything (and many others by Strout). Loved them all. Another recent read that centers around a small town and the stories of its inhabitants is This Is Happiness by Niall Williams. I’d be surprised if you haven’t come across his work in your voracious reading, but in case you aren’t familiar with the book, I feel certain that you would love it, as I did. It’s so beautiful and moving. I was simply gobsmacked. Happy New Year!
I so agree! I loved This Is Happiness!
❤
I have heard about Niall Williams’s book, Sarah. I ordered it from the library last year and I’m not sure why I never received it. Perhaps I cancelled all my holds when we went to Europe in the fall. I must remedy that.
This Is Happiness is so beautifully written that periodically I needed to put it down and let a beautifully crafted turn of phrase sink in, then reread it and let it sink in again.
P.S. I should have taken time to proofread. I’m sure there were alternatives to using the word “beautifully” twice in one sentence.
Based on your recommendation and everyone else’s, I’ve just added This is Happiness to my To Be Read books.
Thank you!
I definitely must order This Is Happiness from the library again.
Sue, it’s so worth the wait. Savor it!
I completely agree!! A friend put it this way: “My life has been changed by this book.”
I am almost moved to tears this morning reading your blog and the comments section. My sister sent me your blog this morning, as I am a huge Elizabeth Strout fan and can devour her books over and over (which I can rarely do with other reads) Somehow they comfort me.
My mother and father died unexpectedly together, in tragic circumstances, whilst I was in my early 30s, I was just married, beginning a new life, where I hoped there would be more time, especially with my mother, who had been a foster child and no remaining siblings, to find out more about her.
For the first time I understand, just now, why I still can feel so bereft at their untimely death (25 years on now).. its the lost stories, there was a sadness within my mother (I felt), that I will never completely understand and things we found out later that she never even knew …I loved how someone asked someone ‘tell me your story’ when they went on a drive together (in your comments) ..
Currently reading’A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara, so heartbreaking and beautiful, perhaps this is also why I am currently moved so easily to tears. Thank you for the read
After this impressive blog I must read an Elizabeth Strout book. Such interesting stories we all have – some with many happy days and some with many sad days. Such is our lives and we must live each and every day to the best of our abilities. I am late with my comments today as our son has had his own serious medical issues and lives too far away for me to comfort him. I can only do that through phone calls and emails. I am hoping his story has a much happier ending in the new year. Thanks Sue for such inspiration.
Sorry to hear about your son, Shirley. That must be hard.
Oh dear… that is sad, Barbara. How much you missed by losing your mum and dad so young. It seems the prime time to listen to their stories is when we are children and when we are much older and life has slowed down a bit.
I think a trip to the library is required! The books mentioned sound interesting.
Perhaps we should all be writing ‘our stories’ for the next and subsequent generations before they become lost. Each of my children has given me a book or a website which asks questions about my life which I can answer with my stories. Many of the questions ask about my memories on a range of topics so it is a good place to start. My elder daughter is particularly keen and wants to know the stories of my life as I moved a lot and most of the people who knew me in my younger days have passed on.
It could be a wonderful task for someone – to listen to stories and write them down as a family’s history. A new career for you Sue? Your writing is always so eloquent and thought provoking.
Several of my friends have used that method to tell their stories to their kids. One couple even learned things about their partner’s childhood that they never knew.
I’ll stick with my blog for a while yet, I think. But thanks.
I love the way you write Sue. I always think how much fun it would have been having a teacher like you. You should think of writing your own book. Elizabeth Strout is one of my favorite authors, and I was particularly taken by the interactions in her last book. I had never thought of all the “unrecorded stories” in my own life, and how wonderful it could be if someone would care to listen. At 80, one does become more philosophical
Thanks, Elisa. I always thought I was lucky to teach creative writing. I learned so much about my students from their work that I’d never have known if I taught them Math or Science.
Ahh, Sue, as others have said, this was a wonderful, moving and very well-written post; one of my favourites. What a writer you are! And as a former educator I can tell you are (still) an amazing teacher.
I am another Elizabeth Strout fan. I thought Tell Me Everything was brilliant — the characters stayed with me, and I love the way each of her novels helps me understand her characters more deeply; so great to stay with the same characters and explore their stories and the various perspectives on the same events.
And I must echo a previous commenter who quoted you — ‘Where the story is not used to explicate a point. But where the story is the point’ — Yes, Please!
I’m a little less sold on Elizabeth Strout than many here..I read I am Lucy Barton last year and loved bits of it but not the whole. I’m halfway through Olive Kitteridge and same reaction. I’ve been trying to put my finger on why and though the writing is often very strong I think for me I diverge on the verisimilitude point. There’s something too much of caricature. Is everyone really having an affair with someone else’s wife or husband? I feel as though real life is more often much much more tedious and involves so much more waiting…but will reserve final judgment until have read the series! I did love the one chapter about the piano player near the beginning. The conclusion at the end of it..I thought “Just so!”
I do have Tell me Everything on the shelf and maybe also O William!
I can agree with your thesis that knowing others is about stories, and I agree also with shifting points of view. I have a mini obsession with this idea.
Wishing you a Happy New Year.
I’m glad I made that off-hand comment in my post. Writing stories just for the sake of the story. And the fact that people picked up on it has started me thinking me. Ideas have been running through my brain all day.
ES is probably my favourite author right now. I’ve read them all, and think about the characters often. Without pouring out my own sadness over the subject of stories – your post today was really lovely and beautifully written. The photos you chose are perfect , too. I really appreciate this today – rather than the usual January vows to work out more, eat less, and obsess over our wardrobes.
Thanks, Lisa. But never fear… I’ll be obsessing about my wardrobe soon enough.
Tell Me Everything was also my first completed book of 2025. Reading your post and these comments, I feel as if I was unknowingly part of an online book club!
It IS like an online book club, isn’t it?
What a wonderful post Sue! I enjoyed being carried through your thoughts on friends and families and the stories related to the people in your life.
I would love a stories series! I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve been thinking about stories in a general sense too. I am reading 1000 Days in Venice by Marlena De Blasi. In the section I read last night, the main character (De Blasi) is asked by her partner to tell the story of her first visit to Venice. I was captivated by her story telling. She wrote it so beautifully. That made me think today about stories that take me away in the most pleasant ways. (So, not exactly what you are writing about, but stories nonetheless.)
I haven’t read Strout, but she is on my list.
Thanks, Dottie. I read 1000 Days in Venice a few years ago and really enjoyed it as well.
I think this is one of your best ever posts. Thank you.
Thanks so much, Jo.
Comments are closed.