Anything Is Possible: A Novel

<b>An unforgettable cast of small-town characters copes with love and loss in this new work of fiction by #1 bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout.</b><br><br> Recalling <i>Olive Kitteridge</i> in its richness, structure, and complexity, <i>Anything Is Possible</i> explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. <br><br> Here are<i> </i>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 <i>My Name Is Lucy Barton,</i> the author's celebrated <i>New York Times </i>bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence. <br><br> Reverberating with the deep bonds of family, and the hope that comes with reconciliation, <i>Anything Is Possible</i> again underscores Elizabeth Strout's place as one of America's most respected and cherished authors.<br><br><b>Praise for Elizabeth Strout's <i>My Name Is Lucy Barton</i></b><br><br> &quot;There is not a scintilla of sentimentality in this exquisite novel. Instead, in its careful words and vibrating silences, <i>My Name Is Lucy Barton</i> offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to . . . simple joy.&quot;<b> - <i>The New York Times Book Review</i></b><br><br> &quot;Spectacular . . . <i>My Name Is Lucy Barton</i> is smart and cagey in every way. It is both a book of withholdings and a book of great openness and wisdom. . . . [Strout] is in supreme and magnificent command of this novel at all times.&quot;<b> - <i>The Washington Post</i></b><br><br> &quot;<i>My Name Is Lucy Barton</i> is a short novel about love, particularly the complicated love between mothers and daughters, but also simpler, more sudden bonds. . . . It evokes these connections in a style so spare, so pure and so profound the book almost seems to be a kind of scripture or sutra, if a very down-to-earth and unpretentious one.&quot;<b> - <i>Newsday</i></b><br><br> &quot;A quiet, sublimely merciful contemporary novel about love, yearning, and resilience in a family damaged beyond words.&quot;<b> - <i>The Boston Globe</i></b><br><br> &quot;Sensitive, deceptively simple . . . It is Lucy's gentle honesty, complex relationship with her husband, and nuanced response to her mother's shortcomings that make this novel so subtly powerful. . . . <i>My Name Is Lucy Barton</i> - like all of Strout's fiction - is more complex than it first appears, and all the more emotionally persuasive for it.&quot;<b> - <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i></b>