Review: TELL ME EVERYTHING

Title: Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Book Beginnings quote:

This is the story Bob Burgess, a tall, heavyset man who lives in the town of Crosby, Maine, and he is sixty-five years old at the time we are speaking of him.

Friday56 quote: 

Lucy stopped walking and looked at him. "Oh Bob," she said softly. And the Bob understood. She had heard him. She had absorbed this from him in a way that neither one of his wives ever could.

Summary:

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?” (Publisher)

Review:

Tell Me Everything is the fifth book in the Amgash series, all set in Crosby, Maine. I've met all the main characters before in this or another series by Strout, so it felt a little like meeting old friends. That said, I think it would work well for a stand-alone, too.

Bob Burgess is married to Margaret, his second wife, but it is Lucy who really seems to understand him. He and Lucy go for occasional walks and they talk about everything. At one point Lucy points out she believes that Bob is a sin-eater, or a person who takes on other's sins or problems. It does seem that he is the person who everyone turns to when they have problems and count on him to take care of things. This is a huge burden, of course, and Lucy really understands him. But this fact actually causes new problems.

I really like Elizabeth Strout's writing style and how she allows us to really have a relationship with her characters over many books and series. I purchased this book for my recent trip to the Northeast. I've never been to Maine before so I wanted to read it while I was in the state. Unfortunately, I didn't finish it while I was there but I had started it. It had me at the very first page. After the introduction to Bob Burgess in the first paragraph, the second paragraph begins with this sentence: "Autumn comes early to Maine. By the second or third week of August a person driving in a car might lgace up and see in the distance the top of a tree that has become red." We were in Maine in the fall and we were having this experience.

.-Anne