It’s been exactly two years since we visited Lucy Barton and her ex-husband William, isolating on the coast of Maine from the pandemic. Tell Me Everything is the story of Bob Burgess, who met in The Burgess Boys. Bob has retired from full time law practice to Crosby, Maine. He takes an occasional criminal case, pro bono, and through the representation, we become familiar with Bob’s keen mind, big heart and sentimentalism. While this is going on, Bob and Lucy Barton, the novelist living down the peninsula, and they go for soul searching and finding walks. And Lucy also befriends Olive Kitteridge, who is now 93 and resident of a local nursing home.
What Tell Me Everything does best is entangle characters we know and love (don’t worry if you’ve not read the other books. You’ll understand that you know and love them) with each other in emotional relationships that are irresistible. In her plain-spoken prose, Strout shows us that there is nothing plain or simple in human relationships, and she gives us permission to accept that, especially in the bounds of marriage.
Tell Me Everything is not a can’t put down book, but it is the kind you will finish, and flip to the beginning to read again and again. I miss these characters when I’m not reading them.
Tell Me Everything was released September 10, 2024, by Random House. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
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