An intricately beautiful collection of characters

Elizabeth Strout has a unique ability to create a whole world of detailed and emotional characters that you can just follow throughout the series of books. While you see much less of Lucy Barton in this book, we see how her family members and people in her community have fared. It seems to me like a modern day To Kill a Mockingbird, especially the part about poverty in areas of America. I'm looking forward to reading the next part.

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5 people found this helpful

Who can ever know?

This outstanding novel by Elizabeth Strout can’t be categorised or compared to any other and deserves more than its 5 stars. The brilliance of such a subtle work is difficult to describe because words in comparison with the author’s can sound banal. My Name is Lucy Barton is Strout’s previous novel published just 18 months ago, and Lucy who left her small-town community of Amagash in Illinois to become a writer in New York is a presence throughout and makes a fleeting, achingly sad appearance late on in the novel.

Anything is Possible doesn’t follow any conventional structure but is a collection of scenes (they’re not really stories): insights into the lives of people who are gradually revealed to be inter-related. As in real life, an outsider (including us as listeners) can never know the whole truth: ‘Who knew? Who knew?’ muses one on hearing of the ghastly reality of another’s marriage. These are glimpses of brilliant illumination into outwardly ordinary lives, into loneliness, misunderstanding, harboured hurt, resilience… Home is not a place of comfort and closeness but of difficulties and pain; warmth, friendship and kindness – those things which are ‘possible’ – come from strangers and at unexpected moments. And just as in real life, conversations juxtapose seamlessly the dreadful (concentration camps, incest, voyeurism) with the apparently trivial (who’s piled on the pounds).

You cannot but believe that these are real people who are gradually revealed to you. They have carried the burden of their childhoods, sneeringly described by some as having ‘come from nothing’; they have eaten from dumpsters and suffered harsh and apparently cruel parents, themselves dogged by their own inadequacies and misfortunes. The strength of the novel is in the shifting perspectives so no-one is merely what we see or hear, as in the mother who left her children to live with an Italian old enough to be her son decades later reunited with her favourite damaged grown-up daughter. The details are piercingly perceptive. Lucy Barton’s long estranged brother Peter buys a new rug for his shabby home for his sister’s visit and afterwards its insistent brightness emphasises all the pathos of the failed occasion.

The narration is just right – Kimberley Farr makes a superb job of letting these real people breathe on their own. As so much is people speaking, Anything is Possible is a gift for audio, but it will also send you to the book to ensure that you savour every word.

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8 people found this helpful

Lovely collection of short stories

All these stories are interconnected and build on the first of the Amgash books ‘My name is Lucy Barton’
Very clever in its construction and so moving.
Cannot wait to start on the next: ‘Oh William’.

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A good and thoughtful read.

An enjoyable novel as we get to know people who are linked together in some way. Great insight into how our past can effect us in a very rounded and non stereotypical way. Really wonderful people who are lovely to get to know. Explores aspects of shame and snobbery, with some sense of humour. I had not expected it to end (a result of not having an actual book and not looking at the chapters) so was most dismayed to find that there was no more to this tale. So could have had more!

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4 people found this helpful

Wonderful

I loved this book, her characterisation is always so wonderful, you become fully invested in these people. I found this book touching, human, insightful.

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Lovely collection of short stories

This book features the characters in the Lucy Barton series. It is a collection of short stories about how some of their lives are intertwined.
I really enjoyed the story telling of these characters and their families.
I also enjoyed the narrator.

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Engaging

I enjoyed this book i have read Olive, Olive again and Lucy Barton also. They are all familiar and connected. Nice relaxing read.

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Intriguing tales of middle America

I really enjoyed meeting the characters created in this book. There is an illusion to Lucy Barton, but she is not really centre stage. Each chapter leads from one character's story to another with slender links between them an insights into both sides of the relationships and the dynamics of the families. It deals with issues of prejudice and the ability of people to make something of themselves. All the people seem real and credible enough that you could meet them in life and recognise them.

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beautifully observed character studies

some intriguing characters. neighbours, friends, relatives. well crafted, not plot driven, occasionally dull, but an enjoyable listen overall

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Intriguing, deeply meaningful, delightful.

This book reveals lives not often given space, the underclass in USA. Poor whites with children so hungry they eat from the garbage. Seen with compassion, unsentimental & humorous , I read the stories twice to appreciate the patchwork of human experience described.

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