Julsbookdiaries

I picked this book up already knowing I would probably love it. I was in Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago, most likely after one of my days sitting in the cafe, doing some work on my laptop. I usually take a few breaks here and there to walk through the stacks and check out the tables in the front, flipping through the new releases. 

One book stuck out to me, and I kept looking at it whenever I returned to the store. The book was titled, “Tell Me Everything” by Elizabeth Strout. Something about that title drew me in. It felt like the book would be an open conversation between two or more characters, which is one of my favorite parts of a book. 

I love following characters through time and learning about them through their conversations with each other. I love it because it reminds me of the simple conversations I have with friends or strangers that leave lasting impressions for whatever reason. A book is the perfect place to explore the intricacies of conversations and relationships with others. 

Anyway, I got all of this from just the title, and the description of the book also had me intrigued. But I looked into it a little more and realized this book was the fifth in Strout’s Amgash series. So, of course, I had to go back and start with the first one, which is titled, “My Name Is Lucy Barton.”

I searched for the title and put it on hold at the library. Luckily, it was ready for pickup the next day. I checked it out and opened it up when I got home. The copy has those rough, almost cut jagged edges to the pages. And when I say jagged, I mean more in the unique shape of each page’s edge, not sharp. It’s also a small book – my copy has about 193 pages. The words are in a bigger, easy-to-read font, and the chapters are short. A very inviting book, in my opinion.

The story is set mostly in a hospital room, with a mother and daughter sharing stories. The environment and scenery change as the stories change and develop. The book is reflective and real. Throughout the book, Strout writes phrases that allow her reader to understand that some details of the story are a little fuzzy – she is uncertain of specific details as she writes, and she tells her audience that. 

On page 138, she writes about when her mother eventually left after staying with her at the hospital for about a week. She writes, “I have no idea if she kissed me goodbye, but I cannot think she would have. I have no memory of my mother ever kissing me. She may have kissed me though; I may be wrong.”

Strout writes the story as she remembers it but allows room for uncertainty. It felt more real when I was reading scenes like that. Because that’s how real people think and recall things. After a while, things get fuzzy, so there may be a handful of versions of the story you tell people. Your perspective and what you remember will probably change over time, so you might as well allow for various experiences and endings to a certain story. 

There are also scenes where the narrator meets with an author, Sarah Payne, to talk about a book she is writing. The book she’s writing is the book you, as a reader, are reading. The narrator is writing “My Name is Lucy Barton,” and recalling stories where she was discussing and thinking through her writing process. 

As I mentioned above, this book felt very reflective. Some scenes made me sit back and think for a while. I tend to take pictures of certain pages or write down quotes while I read – the quotes and pages that stick out to me the most or stop me in my tracks. 

I really enjoyed this book, and it was a short and easier read. I’m excited to continue reading this series and eventually get to the book that I was first drawn to: “Tell Me Everything.”

Standout Quotes:

Pg. 28 

“Then I understood I would never marry him. It’s funny how one thing can make you realize something like that. One can be ready to give up the children one always wanted, one can be ready to withstand remarks about one’s past, or one’s clothes, but then – a tiny remark and the soul deflates and says: Oh.”

Pg. 95

“I have said it before: It interests me how we find ways to feel superior to another person, another group of people. It happens everywhere, and all the time. Whatever we call it, I think it’s the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down.”

Pg. 107

“This is a story about love, you know that. This is a story of a man who has been tortured every day of his life for things he did in the war. This is the story of a wife who stayed with him, because most wives did in that generation, and she comes to her daughter’s hospital room and talks compulsively about everyone’s marriage going bad, she doesn’t even know it, doesn’t even know that’s what she’s doing. This is a story about a mother who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly.” 

Pg. 135

“Sarah Payne said, If there is a weakness in your story, address it head-on, take it in your teeth and address it, before the reader really knows. This is where you will get your authority, she said, during one of those classes when her face was filled with fatigue from teaching. I feel that people may not understand that my mother could never say the words I love you. I feel that people may not understand: It was all right.” 

Pg. 158

“I don’t know the last time I saw this doctor. I went a few times in the years after my hospital stay, and then once when I called for an appointment they said he had retired and I could see his associate. I could have written a letter to him to tell him what he meant to me, but there were problems in my life and my concentration was not good. I never wrote him. I never saw him again. He was just gone, this dear, dear man, this friend of my soul in the hospital so long ago, disappeared. This is a New York story too.” 

Pg. 167

“When I got back to New York after seeing my father – and my mother, the year before – after seeing them for the last time, the world began to look different to me. My husband seemed a stranger, my children in their adolescence seemed indifferent to much of my world. I was really lost.”