鈥楾ell Me Everything鈥� listens in on the stories of the heart
Elizabeth Strout packs more empathy onto a single page than most writers scatter throughout an entire book. Her fiction is filled with the scarred and the scared, good parents and bad, perpetrators and survivors, sinners and what she calls 鈥渟in-eaters.鈥� Many of her characters are chronically lonely and emotionally fragile. Some are curmudgeons, gossips, narcissists, and bullies. The wonder is that she makes our hearts go out to all of them.聽
In fact, Strout loves her characters so much that she keeps going back to them.
Her 10th book, 鈥淭ell Me Everything,鈥� brings together several of her best-loved protagonists. These include Bob Burgess, a truly good man who doesn鈥檛 realize how special he is. Bob, who was featured in 2013鈥檚 鈥淭he Burgess Boys鈥� grew up in Shirley Falls, Maine, believing he was responsible for his father鈥檚 accidental death. After years as an attorney for Legal Aid in New York City, he moved back to his home state to marry Margaret Estaver, a Unitarian minister, who became his second wife.聽聽
One of the main threads of 鈥淭ell Me Everything鈥� is the dangerously close friendship that develops between Bob and writer Lucy Barton, who started taking weekly walks together during the pandemic, when Lucy moved from New York City to shelter in the fictional coastal town of Crosby, Maine. (This was the subject of Strout鈥檚 last novel, 鈥淟ucy by the Sea.鈥�) During their ongoing strolls in 鈥淭ell Me Everything,鈥澛燘ob and Lucy confide their deepest fears and regrets to each other 鈥� things they have repeatedly told their distracted partners, with little response. In contrast, Bob and Lucy鈥檚 conversations are peppered gratifyingly 鈥� though sometimes a tad cloyingly 鈥� with 鈥淚 hear you鈥� and 鈥淚 get it.鈥澛�
Among Bob鈥檚 admirers is crusty, 90-year-old Olive Kitteridge, who asks him to summon Lucy to her retirement home because she has a story she wants to tell her. Things get off to a chilly start when Olive greets the writer celebrated for her sympathetic novels about have-nots and outcasts with this blunt criticism: 鈥淚 thought your memoirs were a little self-pitying, myself. You鈥檙e not the only person to come from poverty.鈥� But Lucy stays, and finds Olive鈥檚 story 鈥� about discovering an old clipping in her mother鈥檚 purse that sheds new light on her life 鈥� a heartbreaking tale of thwarted love. One story leads to many more, which build a bridge between the two women.
鈥淭ell Me Everything鈥� is in fact a book about storytelling. It is also about really listening to other people. 鈥淎nd who 鈥� who who who in this whole entire world 鈥� does not want to be heard?鈥� asks Strout鈥檚 unnamed, omniscient narrator, who channels both the folksy wisdom of the Stage Manager from Thornton Wilder鈥檚 鈥淥ur Town鈥� and the author herself, with frequent sighs and 鈥渙hs.鈥�
Strout sets the tone in the very first paragraph: 鈥淏ob 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.鈥澛�
This, in a nutshell, is Strout鈥檚 credo. It is also the theme of this novel, and central to her appeal: There is no such thing as an unworthy story. Nor, in Strout鈥檚 hands, a dull one.
Where 鈥淟ucy by the Sea鈥� encompassed the growing unrest and division in America, in 鈥淭ell Me Everything鈥� issues such as class resentments, climate change, and longer lines at the local food pantry are largely peripheral. Instead, the latter novel chronicles the ebb and flow of her characters鈥� lives over the course of a pivotal year. And because Strout deftly slips in background information on each of them, you need not have read her previous novels to enjoy this one.聽
The simplicity and warmth of the narrator, who makes declarations like 鈥淎utumn comes early to Maine鈥� and 鈥淎nd so life continued in Crosby, Maine,鈥� also evoke E.B. White, another longtime Maine resident and wonderfully plainspoken writer. But like Strout鈥檚 other books, 鈥淭ell Me Everything鈥� is more complex and tightly constructed than it at first appears.聽聽 聽
The novel deftly braids together three blossoming relationships: between Lucy and Bob, between Lucy and Olive, and, most movingly, between Bob and Matthew Beach, the isolated and traumatized prime suspect in the murder of his mother, 86-year-old Gloria Beach, whose body is found in a local quarry. Bob agrees to take the case, and becomes the caring friend and father figure Matthew never had. Gloria was such a nasty person that everyone who hears about her death says they wouldn鈥檛 blame the murderer 鈥� but even she becomes sympathetic once we learn about the terrible things she experienced in her youth and early adulthood.
Here鈥檚 another thing about Strout: There is nothing rosy about her view of life. As Olive realizes, every story she and Lucy share is about the same thing: 鈥淧eople suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer. Everyone does.鈥� What鈥檚 the point, they wonder. Lucy concedes that what they鈥檝e been sharing are indeed 鈥渟tories of loneliness and love.鈥� But also, she adds, 鈥渢he small connections we make in this world if we are lucky.鈥澛�
How fortunate to connect once again with this deeply humane writer.
