Tell Me Everything

"This is a book about small people in a small town. It’s a celebration of ordinariness. It’s certainly about inner turmoil, coming to terms with ageing, and coming to terms with history—you know: your history, my history, everyone’s history and how it affects us. It’s also a sort of love story and a sort of murder mystery. I mean, it’s everything! And yet it’s so gentle. You know the way some of the most gentle things can be the most powerful, because they come at you slowly but forcefully? It’s lovely. It also feels very much like a classic. There’s no earthquakes, no murder. Well, there is a murder, but you don’t see the murder. It’s gentle, affecting, and very well written. Yes, these kinds of books can be underestimated. This has no big shocks in it. I don’t think it has a ‘fuck’ in it. As I say, gentle but powerful. It definitely speaks to who we are now, and of those small towns where nothing, apparently, is happening, and yet so much is happening."

"This memoir of a nurse's life and career aligns with Oprah Winfrey's interest in stories of resilience and human connection, often featuring strong female voices."

"Elizabeth Strout loves her characters so much, whether they are chronically lonely and emotionally fragile, like Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess, or curmudgeonly and self-absorbed, like Olive Kitteridge and William Gerhardt, that she keeps checking in on them. In Tell Me Everything, she brings together several beloved protagonists from her earlier novels. They connect through storytelling and the shared gift of being truly listened to and heard. “I get it,” they keep saying to each other in this endearing ode to empathy."