{"id":7357,"date":"2017-12-18T05:39:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T05:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7357"},"modified":"2017-12-19T12:38:07","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T12:38:07","slug":"anything-is-possible-by-elizabeth-strout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7357","title":{"rendered":"Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Random House US\/ Viking UK<\/strong><\/p>\n

April 25\/May 4 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

272pp, hardcover, $27\/\u00a312.99<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elizabeth Strout\u2019s short new volume \u2013 a collection of interconnected stories \u2013 isn\u2019t called The Return of Lucy Barton<\/em> but it might have been. Lucy was the raw, questing, embryo writer and eponymous heroine of Strout\u2019s most recent and widely praised novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton,<\/em> (read the bookoxygen <\/em>review here:\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=6374<\/a> ) and since that work Lucy has gone on to achieve a sufficient degree of literary success that her latest publication sends her on an author tour with signing stops. Lucy’s traumatic \"\"<\/a>mid-Western childhood and escape haunt this new book too and, despite Lucy\u2019s earlier avowal that she could not bear return to Amgash, Illinois, where those horrific, formative early years were endured, one of the new stories reveals her making a devastating home trip.<\/p>\n

Once again, Strout\u2019s themes are love and pain, poverty and class, damage and resolution, powerful choices and long-endured roles. The complicated mother\/daughter bond of love that was central to My Name Is Lucy Barton<\/em> resurfaces in various of the narratives, in particular the moving tale of a daughter coming to terms with her parent\u2019s new life in Italy. But that story is a rare geographical escape from Amgash and its environs where, according to one narrator, \u2018incontinence\u2019 (the verbal kind) is frowned upon.<\/p>\n

And so we encounter many solitary and sealed up souls whose lives have crossed, directly or indirectly, with Lucy\u2019s, like widowed Fatty Patty, one of the Pretty Nicely girls. Patty\u2019s marriage was a solace to both parties but also the source of malicious gossip, despite which Patty, a careers councilor, conducts herself with moral grace and touching determination. A central figure in one story, she reappears elsewhere, as do several other figures, as a means of touching in earlier or later developments in their lives with a few brushstrokes.<\/p>\n

Lucy\u2019s siblings, Vicky and Pete, appear on multiple occasions too, and they, along with other characters, recall damaged parents and stigmatized childhoods, from the vantage point of an adulthood that is still a long way distant from psychological release.<\/p>\n

Strout\u2019s empathy and tenderness radiate from this portrait of a scattered community, even when evoking characters whose unpleasantness is manifest. Her personality assessments are shrewd and understated, although a couple of stories verge into the melodramatic, ringing a slightly less secure note.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere the reader is invited into a quiet landscape of contained people whose secrets, compromises and awakenings are both everyday and universal. Women predominate. One or two who are urged to get away do just that, Lucy being foremost among them. Those who stay sink, swim or find their own means of survival.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s love in this collection, but there\u2019s ruin too. The last story closes with the line: \u2018Anything was possible for anyone.\u2019 But it\u2019s not true. Some of Strout\u2019s people are touched with or by cruelty and are too far gone. Yet an abiding generosity inhabits the volume. The preceding novel was a sweeter, tighter nut, but for those affected and entranced by that book, a return to its landscape is most welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* A 2017 Notable Book<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/p>\n

The reader is invited into a quiet landscape of contained people whose secrets, compromises and awakenings are both everyday and universal. Women predominate. One or two who are urged to get away do just that, Lucy [Barton] being foremost among them. Those who stay sink, swim or find their own means of survival […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7357"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7709,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7357\/revisions\/7709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}