Tell Me Everything is the fifth book in the Amgash series by best-selling, Pulitzer Prize winning American author, Elizabeth Strout. Lucy Barton and her ex-husband Willian Gerhardt have been in Crosby, Maine for two years now, having quit New York City at the start of the pandemic. They have a house, Lucy does some volunteer work and writes in her little studio in town, and William works on developing potato varieties resistant to climate change.

Lucy has a close friendship with Bob Burgess, himself returned to Maine from New York City some fifteen years earlier. Bob also does some volunteer work, caring for solitary elders, and a bit of legal work from his office in Shirley Falls, but each looks forward to their regular walks by the river where they talk, Bob smokes an illicit cigarette, and they understand each other very well. All manner of topics are covered: envy, knowing one’s partner, grief, the meaning of life. And about some things: “’Don’t think about it.’ And she smiled at him to indicate their joke about how they both thought of things too much.”

Now ninety, Olive Kitteridge is a resident of the Maple Tree Apartments where she makes sure to daily visit her best friend, Isabelle Goodrow, over the bridge in higher care. She’s heard about the author newly come to Crosby, make a point of reading her books, and decides she may have a story that would interest Lucy Barton. She’s initially unimpressed by this mousy-looking little woman, is a little sharp, but that changes as they spend time together.

Lucy and Olive begin exchanging stories of what they call unrecorded lives. Sometimes they are interesting, sometimes they seem to lack a point, but Lucy says “People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.” There are stories of family members, townspeople, and acquaintances whose lives contain thwarted love, cruelty, devotion, heartbreak, abuse, harassment, alcoholism, infidelity, sadness, and loneliness, but also beauty.

Somewhat in the background of life in Crosby, a woman who notoriously terrified the children when she was on school canteen duty, Gloria Beach goes missing while her youngest son Matthew is out getting groceries. A thorough search yields nothing, and investigations uncover a car hired with a stolen licence and credit card, the owner of which has a very strong alibi. The case goes cold.

When a body is found, months later, suspicion hangs over Matthew Beach. His sister, Diana begs Bob to take the case. When the woman’s will is located, it gives Matthew a motive, and it doesn’t help his case that Bob hears several women remark that they couldn’t blame him if he had killed her. Matthew is an enigmatic figure, a talented artist lacking social skills, but Bob is determined to help the man, even if he’s not telling the whole truth.

As always, Strout gives the reader a wonderful cast of characters with palpable emotions. Big-hearted Bob Burgess, unaware of his worth, excels at absorbing the suffering of others. In the course of the year, he loses a member of his extended family, almost loses another, tries to broker peace between a father and son, gives over and above care to a needy client, and, almost unwittingly, saves a good friendship from irreparable damage that acting on a crush would have wrought.

Lucy is now a grandmother but worries that she has become inconsequential to her daughters, while ageing Olive has lost little of her acerbic wit. Their chats are full of wisdom and insightful observations. Some people depend on a linchpin “I wonder how many people out there are able to be strong—or strong enough— because of the person they’re married to.”

Strout nails it on grief: “He was silently catapulted into an entirely new country, one he had never known existed, and it was a country of quietness and solitariness in a way that he could not—quite seriously—believe. A terrible silence seemed to surround him, he could not feel himself fully present in the world… And he understood then that this was a private club, and a quiet one, and no stranger passing him on the street would know that he was a member, just as he would not know if they were a member. He wanted to stop people he saw, older people especially who were walking alone, he wanted to say— Did your spouse die?”

Her writing, its quality, style and subject matter, is reminiscent of Sebastian Barry with shades of Anne Tyler. Strout writes about ordinary people leading what they believe are ordinary lives (although there are definitely some quirky ones doing strange things amongst them, like the vet giving a demented dog acupuncture) and she does it with exquisite yet succinct prose. Another moving, powerful read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin UK Viking.

Just another wonderful book by Elizabeth Strout. If you have read her books before, you may remember some of the characters. This can definitely be a stand-alone book if you haven't read this author previously. Her people (ie. Olive, Bob and Marilyn, Lucy, William, and their extended families and townsfolk) come to life once again. Bob and Marilyn, a minister are going through some difficult times in their relationship. Sometimes they don't like each other. It doesn't help that Bob keeps secrets from Marilyn or that Marilyn seems to only care for herself. Bob loves Lucy, but Bob being the man he is, won't act on it. Bob and Lucy go for weekly walks and share stories. Olive invites Lucy over and they tell each other stories. Many of the stories told are about family members who are going "through things." The stories may be sad, or happy, exciting or pointless but they relate to life and the ways that people survive. A main theme in the book is that "people suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer." One story in the book is about a childlike man whose mother is remembered as a mean person. When she goes missing the pieces of their particular story come together. This book deals with death, suicide, love, adultery, sexual abuse, illness, parent/child relationships, guilt, and the unknowns of life. It showed me that life comes in waves and that people are placed in each others life, even if it is just to be there for the story. Paraphrased from the book: during the winter, you wait for spring....but when it arrives nothing has changed. Throughout the book I felt happiness, I felt anxiety and fear, I felt love and despair. How blessed are we that are able to feel life. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the complimentary digital ARC. This review is in my own words.

Reader is thrown into the delightful context of Strout's vivid imagination, descriptive ability, and storytelling acumen. If one hasn't read previous work by her, this story helps catch up and encourages the reader to catch up on their own. In the event of having read the previous work, Tell Me Everything catches the reader up in an informative way.

Have read all of her books over the years starting with Olive Kitteridge. In this new book the author has brought together several
of her best-loved characters together again. Elizabeth Strout writes beautifully. Highly recommend