ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

by Elizabeth Strout
 
Call me lazy, but I think one of the reasons that I don’t often pick up collections of short stories is because they take a bit more effort to read than a novel.  I mean, you’ve just figured out who all the characters are and how they relate to one another and where the story is set and when, and the story is over and you have to start all over again with another story.  Who wants to work that hard, right?  Wrong!  You must read Elizabeth Strout’s newest short story collection, Anything Is Possible. 
 
Similar to Olive Kitteridge, her Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories which was made into an award-winning TV miniseries, the stories in Anything Is Possibleare all set in the same place (a small, mid-western, rural town) and many characters appear in more than one story.  In fact, what I found most captivating about this collection was Strout’s clever ability to advance the narrative of one story with characters in a succeeding story.  To be clear, when one story finishes, and you’re thinking, “Oh, I really want to know how that all turned out,” you may find out in a later story from characters with a connection to those in the earlier story.
 
In addition to ensuring that her stories hang together, Strout’s writing within each story is glorious.  She has a knack for developing characters so realistic that you immediately think of someone you know.  Some of Strout’s most compelling themes in the collection include:  adult children’s quest for their parents’ love and approval; the jealousies within families; the social hierarchies in small towns; and the tensions between people who live their whole lives in a small town and those who leave.  Again, I can’t recommend this collection highly enough. (Liz)