I have loved all of Elizabeth Strout's previous nine novels, and "Tell Me Everything" is no exception. It was great that so many of the characters from her previous novels are here again in Crosby, Maine. Bob Burgess is, perhaps, the central character, but here are also Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, William, Margaret, Amy and Isabelle. All a little older if not wiser.
Lucy is now quite a famous author, back from New York and meeting Olive, who just might have some stories for her. After a cool beginning, their relationship warms through time. It's Christmas, and Bob Burgess remembers why he never liked this time of year. But after the Christmas Eve service (his wife Margaret is the priest) they meet up with Lucy and William. However, it's the part when Bob meets up with his previous wife Pam, who has a problem with her current husband, that the writer excels at.
The book then takes a different turn when the body of Gloria Beach is found, and lawyer Bob takes on her husband Mathew as a client. But soon we are back with Olive and Lucy and more wonderful stories. Olive talks about Amy and her mother, Isabelle. Amy now "this high muckety-muck doctor".
As we approach spring, things get difficult between Bob and Margaret. At the same time there is a wonderful close relationship between Bob and Lucy when they meet for walks and conversation. And now it's Lucy telling stories to Olive about families they both knew. Bob thinks he might like Lucy too much. But an argument out of the blue puts paid to that. There is a reminder that when you are married and fall for another person, find something horrible to argue about.
It's left to Lucy, this time, telling stories to Olive. But when all is said and done, it's the writing that is just so great. Many of the chapters begin with the weather. "It was June now, but the day was oddly cold and the wind was furious." I cannot remember a June like that.
Phyl is back from uni and finds the "stultifying affluence of home". Jonathon Coe's book then strays into political territory as her mother, Joanna, invites an old friend to stay. Christopher Swann writes a left-wing political blog. He arrives with his adopted daughter Rashida, close in age to Phyl who shrieks, "Oh no!" However, they become close friends and are there at the very end of the book.
It's Christopher who might be in danger when he infiltrates the right-wing TruCon conference in an old swanky mansion. It's when Detective Inspector Prudence Freeborne turns up that we find the best character in the story. All the interviews she does are all so familiar.
Part 2 of the book is actually an eighty-page memoir written by the now deceased Brian Collier, who was at St Stephen's College, Cambridge, all those years ago with Joanna and Christopher. I think this part is a mirror image of the author's own time at uni because I'm not sure why it is here. There are deaths scattered around the book, but it's all a bit of a jumble. Inspector Freeborne is trying to make sense of it all, thank goodness, and everything is wrapped up at the end. If you had been making notes along the way, you might have made sense of the conclusion. As it is, the rush at the end left me in a daze. As it is, Coe is such a good writer that I enjoyed the book, and it was good that Phyl and Rash closed it together.
The day before, the day of and the day after the wedding of her daughter Debbie. Gail relates her experiences of not just those three days, but of times in her life up to this point. The story centres on the unannounced arrival of Max, her ex-husband, complete with a suitcase and a cat. He expects to stay along with his cat. He sounds like a complete idiot, but possibly not as awful as he once was. Debbie is marrying into a family who is in complete charge (maybe that's for the best). The wedding rehearsal goes fine.
The day of the wedding goes to plan, and even the reception Gail finds tolerable as she just listens to the guests on her table. They go on and on, which is fine. Gail and Max make a discreet exit. It is part three, the day after the wedding, that concentrates on their backstory and divorce that is not as expected. But with Max preparing to leave, what is Gail thinking? Only a short book, this is a typical Anne Tyler story about how people share their lives. It is thought-provoking in asking us if we are just the same. The writing, as ever, is first class. Gail and Max will stay with me for quite some time.
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