Full disclosure: Other than a few clips of Frances McDormand as the titular Olive Kitteridge in the 2014 HBO show, “Tell Me Everything” was this reviewer’s first trip to Crosby, Maine. It’s unlikely to be my last.
“Tell Me Everything” reads like the stories that Lucy Barton shares with Olive throughout the novel. Simple. Relatable. Elegant, even. There is a loose narrative, but mostly it’s just characters Strout fans will have already met, interacting with one another and living their lives. More importantly, sharing their lives. “Tell me everything,” is actually uttered more than once as neighbors converse, swapping information about what’s happening in their town.
At the center of the story is Lucy Barton, the famous writer who has moved to Crosby with her ex-husband, William. Her frequent walks with Bob Burgess, the town lawyer, are beautiful set pieces that tie the novel’s plot together. Bob is nearing retirement but is pulled into an unfolding murder investigation involving a lonely son accused of killing his own mother. The crime is resolved over the course of the novel, but it’s hardly the main attraction. Lucy and Bob’s relationship is the more interesting plot line.
Bob is married to Margaret, the town’s unitarian minister, and while Bob is not unhappy in his marriage, Lucy awakens another part of him. After one of their walks, Strout writes: “Bob felt again that just to be in the company of Lucy gave him a respite from everything.” Bob, we’re told by an omniscient plural narrator that Strout employs occasionally — “is not a reflective fellow” — and so he moves through life without dwelling too much on his inner thoughts or acting on his desires.
Lucy, however, is a storyteller by trade and avocation, and in one of her chats with Olive Kitteridge she introduces the concept of “sin eating,” which she describes as a trait some people have that allows them to unburden others of their sins. It is, according to Lucy, why Bob is a successful lawyer. “I see you around town and everyone who has a problem seems to come to you,” Lucy tells Bob, before adding, “don’t think about it.”
But Strout’s gift is making readers stop and think about lives — from the exciting to the mundane — and that’s what makes this book so appealing. Other than the resolution of the murder case, not much happens in “Tell Me Everything,” and yet there’s a sense that so much is always happening. It’s best to give Lucy the last word in another one of her conversations with Olive, after Olive finishes telling her a story about one of her late husband’s aunts: “People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.”
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