Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

You don’t have to have read My Name is Lucy Barton to appreciate this marvellous collection of linked short stories, but it does add depth to your appreciation. These are not independent short stories; they are the stories of the people who are in some way connected to Lucy Barton, either as family or acquaintance or friend of an acquaintance. The characters sometimes appear in other people’s stories. And sometimes you learn that the situations they were in when their story finished have been resolved offstage, as it were, and you discover the endings of their story in someone else’s story. It’s a fascinating and brilliant technique. So while these stories are not so much plot driven as character driven, plot still has agency. This technique works beyond even the stories in this book, because the original Lucy Barton novel leaves so much unspoken, and you find yourself gathering more clues about her early life as you read this. So the dimension changes. It’s brilliant really. And as characters, these people just shine. They are so very real, such ordinary people with such ordinary lives and such normal problems. They are the sorts of problems, though, that people do not speak about – infidelity, perversion, incest, debilitating neglect and poverty, loneliness, envy and so forth. Strout tells their lives with kindness, empathy, understanding, sensitivity. She’s like the therapist listening and recording. She knows that most of them will not muster the strength to change their circumstances. This is one of the very best, most moving books I’ve read this year and even last. I will be going back to Lucy Barton.