Between the Lines - Anything Is Possible

August's Pick - Anything Is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout

Thoughts

This is my second Elizabeth Strout book, and I am a huge fan. Her writing is precise and deliberate as she quietly draws you into her world. Before you know it, you feel like you've slipped onto the pages alongside her characters. In Anything Is Possible, Strout returns to Amgash, Illinois the setting of her previous book, My Name Is Lucy Barton. At first glance, Anything Is Possible, may seem like a sequel, but it is not. In this book, the author turns her attention upon some of the lesser characters of ...Lucy Barton; she tells their stories and what stories they are. They are stories of resolve and endurance despite past and present disappointments, abuse and abandonment. They are stories of the "leavers" and the "stayers." Once again, Strout's portraits of ordinary people living ordinary lives is handled with great compassion and dignity without giving way to sentimentality.

The structure is reminiscent of that found in Olive Kitteridge but with a twist. In Olive Kitteridge, the stories were linked by Olive. In Anything is Possible, it is the town of Amgash that connects the stories; Lucy Barton appears in only one. The messiness of life is always on display in this book but so too are attempts to understand oneself and others and to do better. Here’s one of my favorite exchanges. Tommy Guptill is talking to Pete Barton, Lucy’s brother.

"And so there's a struggle, or a contest, I guess you could say, all the time, it seems to me. And remorse, well,

to be able to show remorse - to be able to be sorry about what we've done that's hurt other people - that keeps us human."

You'll have to read the book to find out why this is especially meaningful. :)

Overall

I wholeheartedly recommend this collection of interconnected short stories. Reading the nine stories and realizing how they are building one grand story is much like the satisfaction one finds when working on a section of a jigsaw puzzle and then suddenly realizing how it fits into the bigger picture. You may find as I did that the stories in Anything Is Possible will break your heart while simultaneously filling you with hope and a deep and joyful appreciation for being human. Her graceful storytelling leaves me feeling more alive and ( sorry, I can't help it) believing that "Anything is Possible."

Kathryn