The Pulitzer Prize-winning author delivers another luminous tale of human bonds and the search for the meaning of life, as Lucy Barton befriends the town lawyer who has become enmeshed in a murder investigation and finally also meets the legendary Olive Kitteridge.
The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted, Pulitzer prize-winning Elizabeth Strout.
Tell Me Everything is a hopeful, healing novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world. It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William.
Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. Together, they spend afternoons in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known – “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them – reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.
Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love."
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241634356
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 353 g
Dimensions: 207 x 137 x 27 mm
Strout is, as ever, wonderfully attentive to life’s inescapable cruelties and woes - Sunday Times
'The shrewd-eyed observer of love, loss and the ties that bind – life, basically – is back. Strout weaves a gossamer light web of a community’s hopes and setbacks.' - Observer
Strout’s ability to reveal the wonder in unrecorded lives continues to astonish - Telegraph
Elizabeth Strout welcomes us home again, back to the small town where we witness the interconnection of all the characters we've ever loved in her previous novels. It's a beautiful read reminding us that there is extraordinary love in ordinary actions. - Oprah Winfrey
Stunning, deeply felt and profoundly intelligent - Guardian
Strout delivers that most terrible and yet important of literary clichés: a book with heart - Financial Times
I'm looking forward to the return of another literary friend, Lucy Barton, when Elizabeth Strout publishes Tell Me Everything in August' - The Irish Times - The best books of 2024 so far
A stunner that unites beloved characters from her previous books... Strout's musing on life and the importance of storytelling are downright profound - People
Pathos and dry humour gild tender reflections on loneliness and connection, and the redemptive power of storytelling. - Observer
Above all, Tell Me Everything is a novel of moods, how they govern our personal lives and public spaces, reflected in Strout's shimmering technique - The Washington Post
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 - Daily Mail
If you've never cracked the spine of a Strout novel before, don't sweat it - you'll feel like a Crosby, Maine, local by the end of the first chapter - Oprah Daily
Tell Me Everything offers readers an abundance of the searing and plainspoken insights for which Strout is beloved - New York Times Book Review
An exploration of love, loss and unnoticed lives, but most particularly an exploration of the power of stories and storytelling - Wall Street Journal
An achingly moving and exhilarating novel - Boston Globe
a tale of hope and healing with all the same beauty she has become known for - i Paper
Rejoice Strout Fans - Los Angeles Times
Remarkably-crafted - Town & Country
A generous compassionate novel about the need for human need for connection, understanding and love, and the damage that occurs when those things are denied - San Francisco Chronicle
A novel of well-observed connected short stories about fear, regret and friendship - TIME
I'm a huge fan of everything Elizabeth Strout has written, so I will just have to be patient and wait for her new one, Tell Me Everything, which is out in September - Red - Summer loving
Tantalising - Literary Review
With tenderness, honesty, intimacy, and compassion, Strout uses her cunning powers of observation to draw readers beyond the mundane to the miraculous complexities where true friendship lies - Booklist, starred review
This is the pleasure of Strout's books. No previous experience required - Chicago Tribune
Elizabeth Strout packs more empathy onto a single page than most other writers scatter throughout an entire book - The Christian Science Monitor
Exactly the book her fans have been waiting for - Minneapolis Star Tribune
There's a kind of alchemy at work in Elizabeth Strout's prose style - Chapter 16
Tell Me Everything is a sparkling and masterfully crafted novel that indulges our innate curiosity in humanity, grief, happiness and what it means to love - BookTrib
Longtime fans and newcomers alike will relish this - Publishers Weekly, starred review
Simple. Relatable. Elegant... 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. - Associated Press
Lucy Barton, Bob Burgess and Olive Kitteridge are among the signature creations of the modern literary canon. May we continue to reap the richness and surprise of their separate and commingled lives - Portland Press-Herald
Will delight Strout fans - Vulture
It's quietly wonderful and wise - AARP
Deeply human and vibrant portrait of relationships - She Reads
The Strout hive is strong, and no doubt it will be pleased with her latest novel - Lit Hub
Strout's many fans will love this sweet, rambling tale - Kirkus
Strout's delicate unpicking of lives lived quietly, in disarmingly beautiful prose, confirms again her status as one of America's greatest living writers. - Daunt Books
A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own - Hilary Mantel
A terrific writer - Zadie Smith
She gets better with each book - Maggie O'Farrell
Elizabeth Strout is one of my very favourite writers - Ann Patchett
No one else writes like Elizabeth Strout - Rachel Joyce
You don't so much read a Strout novel as inhabit it - Guardian
One of America's finest writers - Sunday Times
What sets Strout's work apart is her characterisation . . . Long on empathy while steering clear of sentimentality, her prose bears the minerality of a crisp white wine, with a seeming simplicity that belies its profound power - Financial Times
Divine. I couldn't wait for the end of each day so I could slip back into Strout's masterfully-crafted universe again. Such awareness of the human condition, such tenderness, such knowing. What more could you ask from a novel? - Priscilla Morris
How wonderful to be back with the wonderful characters created by Elizabeth Strout. Reading one of her novels is like sitting down and having a long catch up with a treasured friend.
I adored how this novel...
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Thank goodness for Elizabeth Strout! Tell Me Everything features Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge, they finally meet and form a friendship, at it's heart is the two women sharing stories of lives/life . They are... More
Elizabeth Strout never fails to utterly captivate me with her writing. Sparse, clean sentences that seem so simple and innocuous but which get under your skin and twist themselves into your mind. The ordinary people... More
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