Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout is about stories. Stories of people and the lives they lead. Stories of lost love, of childhood misadventures, affairs, strange occurrences, emotions, hate, regret. Set in Crosby, Maine, the stories told by so many characters familiar from other Strout books happen in parallel, they intersect, some are fleeting and unrelated to anything else. The spine of the story centres on Bob Burgess and his occasional conversations with Lucy Barton. In the way that friends do, they talk about family problems, difficulty with a brother, with a son, with a partner. They share vulnerabilities, many of which can be traced to childhood and still resonate today though Bob and Lucy are now in their sixties. They try to figure out human nature, if people mean what they say, what is thought but not said, why people are loyal or disloyal, how a child can love a parent but not like them, of the differing nature of grief. Lucy says, ‘…people just live their lives with no real knowledge of anybody …My point is that every person on this earth is so complicated, and we match up for a moment – or maybe a lifetime – with somebody because we feel that we are connected to them. And we are. But we’re not in a certain way, because nobody can go into the crevices of another’s mind, even the person can’t go into the crevices of their own mind.’
We see Olive Kitteridge in her care home, telling stories to Lucy and Lucy returning the favour. We also see Olive’s loneliness, critically at the news that her only friend in the home, Isabelle, is moving to the west coast. Bob takes on a murder case, defending a local man Matt Beach accused of murdering his elderly mother. Matt, something of a strange loner, turns out to be a secret painter of real talent, painting portraits that Bob thinks should be in a New York gallery. In the absence of another suspect, Matt appears guilty to the police who don’t know him.
Of course people don’t tell each other everything, some secrets are eventually shared, others remain hidden, even between partners some things are never told. So is Lucy right, is it impossible to ever truly know another person? Like all Strout’s Maine titles, Tell Me Everything can be read as a standalone novel or as companion to the other books. I did start reading and wonder, is this more of the same. But Strout’s writing and characterisation is bewitching in its truth, its honesty and its realism, so I quickly became lost in the stories.

Read my reviews of these other books by Elizabeth Strout:-
AMY & ISABELLE
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
LUCY BY THE SEA
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
OH WILLIAM!
OLIVE KITTERIDGE
OLIVE, AGAIN

If you like this, try:-
‘Old God’s Time’ by Sebastian Barry
‘Smash all the Windows’ by Jane Davis
‘Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview TELL ME EVERYTHING by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Ho via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-