Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

I’m on the Lucy Barton bandwagon, better late than never! I’m glad I found this series, and I like how it’s not traditionally chronological.

This second book of the Lucy Barton series is a collection of stories and vignettes from the Amgash community Lucy grew up in. Lucy herself also features and she has a powerful reckoning with her siblings, but a lot of this book looks at peripheral characters. I like how the stories talk to each other and help build understanding or provide different narratives for some characters. There’s a lot of empathy here.

I think this book has some really great depictions of trauma and relationships, but it’s also a tough read too. Some fates are hard to read and the realism makes it harder to distance yourself from it. It’s that kind of devastating everyday tragedy.

Weirdly I felt some echoes of another book I read this year: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.