Anything Is Possible

A Novel

By: Elizabeth Strout

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

An unforgettable cast of small-town characters copes with love and loss in this new work of fiction by number one best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout.

Recalling Olive Kitteridge in its richness, structure, and complexity, Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others.

Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother's happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author's celebrated New York Times best seller) returns to visit her siblings after 17 years of absence.

Reverberating with the deep bonds of family and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout's place as one of America's most respected and cherished authors.

©2017 Elizabeth Strout (P)2017 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"In an impressive encore performance of Strout's prose, Kimberly Farr successfully mines the essence of each flawed character, giving hope and pain equal billing without succumbing to theatrics.... Farr's presence melts into the background, allowing the stories themselves to take center stage. This is an audiobook to get lost in." ( AudioFile)

Elizabeth Stroud is wonderful!

I loved Olive Kitteridge; I loved My Name is Lucy Barton; and I loved this book. The characters are so well developed, yet there isn't an extra word. I especially enjoy the interrelatedness of the individual stories.

This book is the reason to read Lucy Barton

I loved my first book by Elizabeth Strout; Olive Kitteredge has a permanent place in my host of imaginary companions, who follow me around a commenting on my life. But Lucy Barton, my second read, was disappointing.

And then, I learned what Lucy Barton was preparing me for. The women, and some sensitive men, of Amgash, Illinois come to life in these loosely woven stories. They are flawed, doubting, hoping, and often (but not always) redeemed. Strout believes in the ripple effects of a benevolent gaze, but she is not shallow or trite in demonstrating this.

This is a quiet book for a rainy afternoon or for recovering from something that has exhausted the spirit. It is suitable for reading after the midterm election is over--whether your side won or lost, Strout's stories of small town life will remind you of how, and why, to repair the fragile threads that make a family or community. It's not an adventure story or a who-dunnit. It's not a Pollyanna story of good people doing good deeds and saving the world. But it is believable, and there is grace in these people.

Strout captures the rural Illinois that I know--the sweltering heat of summer, the knife-edge fragility of a family farm, the easy cruelty of tiny town gossip, the equally easy generosity of neighbors, the stands of oak, the endless miles of genetically-engineered corn and soybeans, the resistance to change and the inevitable inroads that it makes in our lives, anyway. There are shafts of light amidst the dark green overgrowth that lines footpaths in town that has outlasted its economic reason to exist. My heart wants to go there, too, to rest only slightly uneasy while fireflies dance quietly in the grass.

Interesting group of people to spend time with

So much better than My Name is Lucy Barton.

Strait dies such a great job of creating a community...

It was so good, I’d like to listen to it all over again!

I highly recommend this book. Great stories, great insight into the human condition. It is a book of short stories all interwoven.

Best Read of Winter/Spring 2017

This is the story about a town you won't remember and it's people who you can't forget. Strout's writing style seems as simple as her character's lives that she colors in chapter- by- chapter.

The reader becomes fully invested in these small town people who connect in beautifully written "slices of life."

Outstanding ending. A great piece of literature.

My favorite read so far in 2017.

The Scars and Sweetness of Life

A thoughtful story about the stories and scars we carry with us through life. How we cope with,over-compensate for or fold in on ourselves from the emotional weight of our past. I loved the compassion the writer has for these flawed and striving characters. This is a book the I will go back to.

A Perfect Match of Narrator to Book.

What I loved most was that the narrator took her time and never rushed the stories so beautifully written. Immediately upon finishing, I sent this book to my sister and thanked her for never making me feel lonely.

Best writing ever. Best story ever

I loved this book. I had read MY NAME IS
LUCY BARTON by the same author
which makes this next book more enjoyable,
but it definitely is not essential.
Elizabeth Strout has superb language
skills.

Ms. Strout is an amazing storyteller!

Her writing is random but very personal. Her stories make you reflect on your own experience. She certainly leaves you pondering the human condition. I loved this book!

Read “My Name is Lucy Barton “ first

I have loved everything Elizabeth Strout has written. She creates characters-ordinary people -that the reader can truly care about. Mostly, she writes with insight and compassion. I had read Lucy Barton a few years ago. After I listened to two of the stories in “Anything is Possible,” I knew I had to stop and go back and reread “Lucy” and I’m glad I did. These beautiful stories are so entwined with Lucy that you cheat yourself if you aren’t familiar with the earlier book; moreover, I got more meaning from “Lucy Barton “ the second time through.
I wasn’t sure I liked the narrator at first, but I came to really enjoy her characterization as she moved smoothly through the stories. This was an excellent listen and I was sorry when it ended.