Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

But this isn't just a book about the Bartons - it's about the many other characters that populate Lucy's memoir and Amgash itself. It's about their fractured relationships, their longstanding insecurities and their triumphs and disappointments, all of which have been shaped by their small-town childhoods in an isolated farming community. Just like Lucy herself - who has tried her best to reshape her miserable childhood into something more ambiguous but is foiled by her sister's insistence on reminding her that their mother once made her eat food out of the toilet and that their family life was lived in terror of their unpredictable father, a compulsive public masturbator - these are characters who will never quite escape their pasts, even when they've made some sort of peace with them.
There's no real plot to this novel, so if plot is important to you it probably won't be your thing, but the characters are beautifully drawn, fascinating and believable individuals. Strout is an exceptionally perceptive writer who can express complex truths in a dozen words, and this was perhaps what I most enjoyed about this book. My only complaint is that, as it's a series of brief insights rather than a story in its own right, I didn't get to see enough of the characters, many of whom certainly warrant an entire novel.
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