Anything is Possible

I really like Elizabeth Strout’s writing and Anything is Possible is a wonderful revisiting of the characters and people met in My Name is Lucy Barton. Strout structures this novel with each chapter focusing on a different person who Lucy grew up with and it starts as Lucy’s memoir is released.

People fascinate me and Strout does an amazing job of clearly painting the picture of who all these people are and how they relate to each other and, ultimately, to Lucy Barton. As we meet each person we’re occasionally given tidbits of the people in previous chapters. Time moves, but it’s not always clear how quickly, and we start to see the world Lucy grew up in very different ways. Each and every family had their difficulties.

And isn’t that always the truth? No one knows the full story of what happens in families and in so many cases so much more is going on than even the people involved realize. Strout gets that in a way that is amazing and she shows you that reality, again and again, in so many interesting ways. I really enjoyed this book, her descriptions are so amazing I always feel like I’m right in the place.

It seemed the older he grew—and he had grown old—the more he understood that he could not understand this confusing contest between good and evil, and that maybe people were not meant to understand things here on earth. (p 13)