Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

When it comes to good novels, as with children, I'm of the opinion that it takes a village. Not necessarily externally, but some of my favourite books have the flavour of an entire village, town, or city within them. It probably satisfies the gossip in me, but there's something about recognising characters as they move between each other's stories, learning about them in chunks as the whole picture slowly comes into focus, that I find very satisfying. 

I've always loved Middlemarch, the classic tale of an entire village of people, and also adore the far seedier and unhappy Knockemstiff, that describes the hard lives of people in a Southern Ohio town. It's also what caused me to love Anything is Possible so much, the newest novel by the incredible Elizabeth Strout.

Those who have read and loved My Name is Lucy Barton will recognise some of the cast that inhabit the melancholic town of Amgash, Illinois, but reading that novel is by no means a pre-requisite for enjoying this latest. It stands alone as a beautiful portrait of people muddling along and doing their best, despite the desperation that often seems to surround them. Each chapter is from a different character's point of view, and named as if they're short stories, but I'm reluctant to categorise them as such since they're so closely intertwined and read so obviously from cover to cover, though it would be tempting to go back and re-read them individually once you've got to the end.

They are very ordinary stories, about people visiting their ailing mothers; checking on their neighbours; cheating on their wives; going to local plays with their granddaughters. Yet there is something precious in each of them, each person has a singular revelation in their story, a glint of gold in the grey where they pick out something wonderful in their lives, or something painful, but something so truthful to the human experience that it brought me to tears more than once.

I'm at risk of being hyperbolic with this novel, but that's simply because I found it both heartbreaking and simultaneously comforting to read, making it a rare gem. I will no doubt now be steadily working my way through Elizabeth Strout's backlist, and recommend anyone else inspired to do the same to begin with the gorgeous Anything is Possible.

Robyn