I’m not much of a traveler, so when I say that I’m just back from “a quick trip to Florida,” please know that this meant I had to can the green beans, pick and pickle the cukes, and snatch the snap peas off their vines before I could even begin packing. Through every single delightful day of the women’s conference and my time with the planners and participants, I felt welcomed, cared for, appreciated, and prayed for.
I was also aware that I had been transported to a foreign land! I’m processing some of the differences between Maine and Florida, two very dissimilar protuberances off the United States’s east coast. We’re connected by US Route 1, the fine service of Allegiant Air, and the migration patterns of “snowbirds” who winter in Florida and summer here in Maine. Other than that? Our lives and habits are as different as our climate and our geography.
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout is set in Maine, and she does a fine job establishing a sense of place in every single detail. I nodded my head as she described the sighting of the first red maple leaf during the second week of August, the many back roads in Maine, and the rising hope that comes with longer days in February. In Maine, March does, indeed, arrive with “mud everywhere” and wet feet from melting snow, and we do pin our hopes on the blooming of crocuses and the forsythia bushes that keep us waiting until past mid-April.
Bob Burgess gets the most air time in this particular Strout novel, and the main plotline involves a murder investigation and Bob’s big-hearted involvement and legal support of the main suspect. However, subplots abound, and Bob is surrounded and supported by all the Crosby, Maine regulars including the irascible Olive Kittredge and his friend of the heart, Lucy Barton.
If you’ve read any of Wendell Berry’s Port William stories and learned to sift through the anecdotes and family histories involving an abundance of single-mention names and their backstories, consider that preparation for your immersion in Strout’s Crosby, Maine. Since “we are necessarily influenced by those who have come before us,” she provides ample material for understanding her characters. Olive and Lucy’s story exchange of “the unrecorded lives” they have known was one of my favorite parts of the book. Readers for whom the use of coarse language would ruin their reading experience will want to give this book a pass.
Tell Me Everything reads like a story told over the neighbor’s back fence, and Strout’s writing style reinforces that conversational feeling with plenty of “as we have said’s” and “as we know’s” directed to the reader. There’s also a fair amount of good advice for conducting healthy relationships and putting up with one another for those willing to read between the lines and take full advantage of other peoples’ bad decisions as behavior to be avoided and learned from.
Once again, Elizabeth Strout has created a web of relationships that, in our age of self-imposed isolation, reminds the reader of the importance of friendship and the weighty gift of saying, “I’m right here. Anytime you need me, call and I’ll be there.” You might even find yourself mustering the courage to say it to someone.
What Other Reviewers Are Saying
“No novelist working today has [Elizabeth] Strout’s extraordinary capacity for radical empathy, for seeing the essence of people beyond reductive categories, for uniting us without sentimentality.”—The Boston Globe
“With extraordinary economy of prose—few writers can pack so much emotion, so much detail into a single paragraph—Strout immerses us in the lives of her characters, each so authentically drawn as to be deserving of an entire novel themselves.”—The Guardian
More by Elizabeth Strout
I enjoyed and reviewed Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea in 2022. It tells the story of how Lucy Barton, a New York author, landed in coastal Maine. Lucy was, quite unexpectedly, very good company. I found myself sympathetic toward her frailty and amused by her quirky overthinking, so it was delightful to meet her once again in Strout’s latest book. You can read my review of Lucy by the Sea HERE.
Holding you in the light,
In TELL ME EVERYTHING, Elizabeth Strout has created a web of relationships that, in our age of self-imposed isolation, reminds the reader of the importance and the weighty gift of friendship. @randomhouse #bookreview
Tweet
Free Encouragement in Your Inbox!
On the third Thursday of every month, I send a newsletter with biblical encouragement straight to my subscribers’ email inboxes. Frequently, I share free resources, and the newsletter is where everything lands first.
CLICK HERE to read my most recent newsletter where you’ll be given the opportunity to subscribe. I’m committed to the truth that women can become confident followers of God and students of his Word, and I want to help you along that path.
Looking for Challenging Devotional Reading that Encourages You to Seek Intimacy with God Every Day?
As you know, I’m committed to the truth that women can become confident followers of God and students of his Word, and it’s my goal to help you along that path. At Living Our Days, I provide biblical content and resources to encourage biblical literacy and faithful living, and now I’m sharing devotional content on the YouVersion app. Visit my profile page to get free access to the reading plans!
I participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees. If you should decide to purchase any of the books or products I’ve shared, simply click on the image, and you’ll be taken directly to the seller. If you decide to buy, I’ll receive a few pennies at no extra cost to you.
Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.
Living Our Days 
So glad to hear you had a great time in Florida; and yes I agree that they are quite different from one another and yet oddly they tend to each make it into my favorite states slot (Maine is my favorite in the summer and Florida is my favorite in the fall/winter!).
LikeLike
They’re the “Best in Their Category” States!
(I’m glad Maine is on your list!)
LikeLike
I am so glad you enjoyed Florida. I love visiting Maine 🙂 I keep thinking, and saying, I really need to incorporate a novel or two into my reading.
LikeLike
Last year I gave myself permission to read more fiction. It was a good decision!
LikeLike
Oh thank you!! for this intro to another of Strout’s books. Oh William accompanied our recent road trip to be with grands and I loved it, and always, Strout’s writing… So I’m very glad there’s another I’ve not read ( : Being a farmer (gardener) and travel don’t mix well. I’m enjoying a little more freedom in this way with just a tiny patch of dirt for flowers and a kind landlord who saw to all the houseplants while we were away ( ;The world is so full of variety isn’t it! Living in the land where many snowbirds originate I must admit to envying their migrations when winter sets in! Blessings on your preservation of summer while supplies last!
LikeLike
The last of the green beans were committed to jars this morning. Tomatoes and beets will be next.
So happy to hear that we share an appreciation for Strout’s writing.
And on another note, I’m wrapping up an in person book club around Jayber Crow which has sent me back to our online book club posts and your thoughtful contributions! Good memory…
LikeLike
This sounds like a good read, though I usually pass on bad language. I love books with a string sense of place. Maine is one of the places my husband has always wanted to visit. Maybe some day we’ll make it up that way!
On a side note, have you ever read Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes? It was also set in Maine. I loved that book.
LikeLike
That’s a new one on me, Barbara. It’s definitely fun to read books set here in Maine—especially if they get it mostly right.
LikeLike
Whose Waves These Are is set in a coastal fishing village in Maine, so there may be some cultural differences from a country setting. But that book made me want to get and read everything else Amanda Dykes wrote.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s fun when we find ourselves literally at home in a book. Sounds like an enriching experience. And I’m so glad that the conference went well. I can only imagine how deeply blessed everyone was since I know how filled and fueled I am keeping company with you here online.
And yes, I hear about that push-pull between being home and being away doing what you love. I think this might be our 4th trip out of town in 4 months and as much I’m enjoying every minute, weariness is calling my name and I’m longing for home sweet home for more than a week or two at a time.
But I wouldn’t change a thing.
LikeLike
So glad to hear that there was nothing you would have changed about the season. There’s SO MUCH push-pull going on right now: the need for solitude but the desire to serve my family well; the duties at home that get put aside to do what needs doing away from home!
Thanks be to God that “he changeth not!”
LikeLike
There was always one maple in a low spot near our farmhouse that changed color in August!! This book sounds like an interesting read about Maine!
LikeLike
And did you wait with baited breath every April for the forsythia to bloom—and then, after that, the wait for leaves to appear?
LikeLike