ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE by Elizabeth Strout

One could say that Elizabeth Strout makes ordinary people compelling, but, actually, this book is populated with characters who are anything but ordinary.  Lucy Barton, from Strout’s earlier work, My Name Is Lucy Barton, returns to her Midwestern hometown after having published a best-selling memoir.  When her siblings dredge up an incident from the past that paints their mother as an even worse monster than Lucy remembers, Lucy has a panic attack, cutting her visit short.  Her brother Pete, who lives in their poverty-stricken childhood home, has always harbored the opinion that their father started a fire that uprooted a family and killed their livestock.  Pete is such a tragic character, shouldering the guilt about his father and stressing out as he tries to make his house presentable for Lucy’s visit.  Other characters do not fare as well in the sympathy department, particularly Linda and her husband Jay.  Linda basically serves as her husband’s pimp, encouraging his voyeurism and sexual liaisons.  Yikes!  The aberrant actions of this pair backfire when his unwanted attention becomes predatory, and I found it impossible to be compassionate for them.  Aside from these two wackos, most of the other characters are people I would like to get to know.  Mary is especially appealing.  She lives in Italy with her decades-younger husband Paolo, when her beloved daughter Angelina finally comes to visit.  This reunion comes with some baring of souls, and I loved being a party to this mother-daughter conversation.  The writing here is just extraordinary in a very understated way, and I’m now accustomed to Strout’s usual format—individual stories that blend together to make a whole.  I see that her latest novel, Oh William!, is the third in this series, and I hope to read it before I forget these characters.