Anything Is Possible: A Novel

"This book of short stories grew out of Elizabeth Strout’s novel My Name is Lucy Barton. The stories are linked by the town where the characters grew up, and where many still live, and by its most famous resident Lucy Barton, who is now a successful writer living in New York. The stories fill in the details of Lucy’s impoverished and abused childhood. Each introduces a different character: a Vietnam vet who never really recovered from the war, the former school janitor who learns a faith-shattering truth when he visits Lucy’s brother. Shame, regret, anger and pain lurk beneath the surface of these lives, but so do love, kindness and redemption. Elizabeth Strout has a way of looking into the soul of her characters and finding something to make you care."