The Nature of Things

I've sometimes thought that Maine would be a great place to live. Land of four seasons; summers that do not feature 100 degree days with 90% humidity and the threat of devastating hurricanes; autumns that feature brilliant colors; and winters with snow. Sounds ideal.  But then I think about all those white people who live there. Not that I'm prejudiced against white people; after all, I'm one of them. But I do enjoy living in a place where, on any given day, one might encounter any color and any language available in the human condition. Diversity rules! Still, Crosby, Maine sounds like an idyllic place and it does have its town character, Olive Kitteridge, to recommend it. Yes, I would love to live next door to Olive. She speaks her mind bluntly. She's irascible and does not suffer fools gladly. Or at all. In short, she is everything I aspire to be. Olive loves her home town, but she recognizes its lack of color diversity and is delighted that a group of Somali refugee...

This is not a sequel, but it would certainly enhance one's pleasure in reading the book to have first read Strout's previous book, My Name is Lucy Barton . In fact, I can't imagine reading Anything is Possible without first having read that earlier book. Lucy Barton appears physically in only one of the stories here, but her spirit and memories of her are the connective tissue that binds all the stories together. Those who have read My Name is Lucy Barton will remember that Lucy and her family were from the small town of Amgash, Illinois. The Barton family were dirt poor when Lucy was growing up and the children were conscious of other children, other families feeling superior to them. Moreover, in later life, Lucy and her two siblings remember the daily slights and humiliations, but they also remember those who treated them kindly. This book takes us back to Amgash and we get to hear many of the stories of those people who interacted with the Bartons, both the ones who w...

I am a big fan of Elizabeth Strout's writing. I greatly enjoyed her latest book My Name is Lucy Barton and I just read that she has another one coming out in the spring - something to look forward to. But probably my favorite among her books, so far, is Olive Kitteridge , winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2009. Not only did I love the book, I also loved the HBO limited series based on the book. It starred the wonderful Frances McDormand as Olive. She was perfect in the role. When I recently read about Strout's new book in one of the magazines that I follow, it naturally brought to mind Olive Kitteridge and my pleasure in that book. I read and reviewed the book back in 2014. Rereading my review brought it all back to me. ~~~ December 16, 2014 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: A review   My rating: 5 of 5 stars          Olive Kitteridge is a large woman with a loud voice and a big personality. If we were to compare Crosby, Maine to a solar...

Elizabeth Strout once again explores the mother/daughter relationship in My Name is Lucy Barton . As a daughter of a mother and a mother of daughters, I find the subject irresistible, and I can't really think of any writer who does it better than Strout.  The eponymous title character has plenty of time to meditate on the intricacies and complications of such relationships as she lies in a hospital bed for nine long weeks. She had entered the hospital for an appendectomy in which everything proceeded routinely, except that then she was struck down by a bacterial infection which threatened her life.  At the time of her illness, Lucy Barton was married to a man with a demanding job and was the mother of two small daughters. She was a budding writer. When her hospital stay stretched into weeks, her husband was not able to spend much time with her and she didn't really have any friends to take up the slack. And, of course, hospital regulations for the most part kept her daughters ...

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout My rating: 5 of 5 stars Olive Kitteridge is a large woman with a loud voice and a big personality. If we were to compare Crosby, Maine to a solar system, Olive would be the sun around which all the planets orbit. Olive is not a lovable woman. She is outspoken and opinionated but has trouble expressing her own emotions. As we progress through the thirteen short stories that comprise this portrait of her, however, we learn that she is a woman who loves passionately and deeply. It is her tragedy that she is not able to express it. Short stories are not my favorite form of writing, but these short stories seem a particularly appropriate way to reveal Olive to us. Each story features different characters, often long-married couples, sometimes former students of the formidable Ms. Kitteridge - she taught math at the junior high school until her retirement - and sometimes just people passing through the little town, but we see Olive through their eyes. Sh...