The Correspondent

 

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Fiction

2025

Narrated by Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, and Jade Wheeler

Finished on October 4, 2025 and August 5, 2026

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Update: I read this a second time, listening to the audio edition, which is outstanding. I loved the full-cast ensemble of 13 narrators, especially Maggi-Meg Reed, who brings Sybil to life with a wide variety of emotions. What a remarkable debut novel. I couldn't love it more!

Publisher's Blurb:

A woman tries to heal old wounds and make sense of the world the only way she knows how—through letters—in this charming, laugh out loud debut novel about a life fully lived.

“Dear Ms. Van Antwerp,

There is a movie coming out this month and I saw the trailer and it made me think of you. It’s about an old woman who lives alone like a hermit.  She is eccentric and rude….”

Sybil Van Antwerp is a mother and grandmother, divorced, retired from a distinguished career in law, an avid gardener, and a writer of letters. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books. 

Because at seventy-three, Sybil has used her letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. But as Sybil expects her life to go on as it always has, letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life.

Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel that is a testament to the power of the written word.

What a delightful book! Several blogging friends have raved about The Correspondent, so when I saw a copy on the shelf at Imprint Bookshop (in Port Townsend, WA), I couldn't resist. One of my favorite subgenres is epistolary fiction, and as I sat down to start this post, I did a quick search to see just how many I've read/reviewed. Wow. I had no idea I'd read so many.* When I was a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, I created an endcap with some of my favorite epistolaries. Today, I'd need two endcaps! 

I wonder what it is about a book centered around a collection of letters that is so satisfying. Until the advent of email (I think we started with Prodigy and then moved on to AOL), I used to write to a few of my childhood friends, a good friend who moved to the East Coast, and to a few relatives (my grandmother, my godmother, and my mom, all after I moved from California to Nebraska). I loved finding pretty stationery to use for my letters, and had a couple of fountain pens that were fun to write with. I miss sitting down with pen in hand to write long, chatty letters, but typing is so much easier. Once we had a computer, I began to type letters, printing them out to send in the mail. Even that method has gone by the wayside. I try to send birthday cards through the mail, but texting & Facebook seem to be the favored mode for that communication. After reading The Correspondent, I'm inspired to start writing again. 

But back to the novel. What a wonderful achievement for Virginia Evans. I never would have guessed this was her debut! I enjoyed the book from the first page, and wound up starting over after I reached the 60th page. I knew it was going to be a winning read and I didn't want to read it too quickly. 

Sybil reminded me of Olive Kitteridge with her unfiltered, opinionated comments, saying exactly what she felt, not mincing words. And yet, I loved the spunk and kindness that came through in her letters. I also like that she received replies from the various authors to whom she wrote. (Yes, I know she's not a real person, but I was still happy for her.) I was especially thrilled to read the details of Ann Patchett's reply on a postcard with an image of her dog... I, too, have received the same postcard from Patchett in response to a letter I sent to her a few years ago! I also found myself nodding my head as I read the exchanges between Sybil and Joan Didion. I read The Year of Magical Thinking after our daughter died. "The club of parents who have buried children is a membership I wish I did not own, but the sense of being seen is comforting."

In addition to my love of epistolary works, I enjoy books that reference other books, and The Correspondent is chockful of titles, many of which I've read (denoted with the check mark):

• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
• The Chateau by Jaclyn Goldis
• Round House by Louise Erdrich
• Inferno by Dan Brown
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier ✅
• The World Below by Sue Miller ✅
• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf ✅
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ✅
• State of Wonder by Ann Pachett ✅
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett ✅
• Run by Ann Patchett
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese ✅
• Blue Nights by Joan Didion
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion ✅
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie ✅
• Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
• The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
• Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
• Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff ✅
• Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck ✅
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ✅
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry ✅
• The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
• Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Stoner by John Williams ✅
• The White Album by Joan Didion
• Amongst Women by John McGahern
• That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern
• The Stories of William Trevor by William Trevor
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson ✅

Dear Virginia,

Thank you for creating such a wonderful character in Sybil. I loved each and every letter, and will recommend your novel to all of my book-loving (and letter-loving) friends. Please write back! Actually, I would prefer you skip a reply and get to work on another book. Meanwhile, I plan to re-read your excellent book in the coming months.

With great admiration,

A fellow lover of snail-mail.

*Below is my list (with links) of the epistolary books that I've read:

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (5/5)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (4.75/5)

These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy Turner (5/5)

Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (3/5)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (5/5)

Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor (3.5/5)

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger (4.75/5)

Love & Saffron by Kim Fay (5/5)

The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg (4/5)

Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod (4/5)

Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole (3.5/5)

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson (4/5)

Dear Stranger, Dearest Friend by Laney Katz Becker (5/5)

Dear Exile: The True Story of Two Friends Separated (for a Year) by an Ocean by Hilary Liftin (3/5)

The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt (4/5)

A Celibate Season by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard (4.5/5)

My Dear Cassandra: Selections from the Letters of Jane Austen (Penelope Hughs-Hallett, editor) (3/5)

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed (4.5/5)

Delicious by Ruth Reichl (3.5/5)

That Part Was True by Deborah McKinlay (4.5/5)

Impatient with Desire by Gabrielle Burton (4/5)

Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham (2.5/5)

The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel (3/5)

'Tis the Season! by Lorna Landvik (4/5)

Between Friends by Debbie Macomber

The Boy Next Door by Meggin Cabot

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death

 

I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell

Nonfiction - Memoir

2017

Finished on November 10, 2025 and July 16, 2026

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good) and 4/5 (Very Good)

Update: I read this a second time for book club. It was good, but not as good as the first time around. Not one I'll read again, so I've passed it on.

Publisher's Blurb:

We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death.

I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter--for whom this book was written--from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers.

Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.

I've read all but one of Maggie O'Farrell's books (The Marriage Portrait) and other than a couple of her novels, I Am I Am I Am is my favorite of her entire collection of published works. Wow. She has crafted a lovely memoir, filled with love, fear, and the most near-misses a human being could possibly encounter in their lifetime. O'Farrell is both a very unlucky and lucky woman to have experienced so many brushes with death. And she doesn't simply recount those situations in a cut and dried manner, but weaves poetic details throughout each beautifully rendered essay. I held my breath as I read a couple of the vignettes, fearful of the outcome despite knowing she is currently alive and (hopefully!) well.

There is nothing unique or special in a near-death experience. They are not rare; everyone, I would venture, has had them, at one time or another, perhaps without even realizing it. The brush of a van too close to your bicycle, the tired medic who realises that a dosage ought to be checked one final time, the driver who has drunk too much and is reluctantly persuaded to relinquish the car keys, the train missed after sleeping through an alarm, the aeroplane not caught, the virus never inhaled, the assailant never encountered, the path not taken. We are, all of us, wandering around in a state of oblivion, borrowing our time, seizing our days, escaping our fates, slipping through loopholes, unaware of when the axe may fall. 

I can't imagine anyone reading this memoir who doesn't revisit their own close calls. While I don't care to go into detail of the times that I might have avoided the Grim Reaper, O'Farrell's encounters do remind me of a few. I suppose anyone who has given birth, gone swimming in the ocean, hiked alone, or flown in an airplane will find themselves nodding their heads as they read this book. The final essay had holding my breath, especially knowing someone who has a child with severe allergies to numerous food items.

I know I must nod calmly when people tell me they understand exactly how I feel because they have a gluten allergy, which makes them really bloated whenever they eat bread. I know to be patient and genial when I have to explain that, no, it’s not OK to bring that hummus into our house. No, it’s not a good idea to give her a little bit to get her used to it. No, please don’t open that near her. Yes, your lunch could kill my child.

I loved this beautiful memoir. It's a keeper.

Highly recommend.

2025 Year End Survey and Top Picks List

 

I had a really good year of reading in 2025. I surpassed my Goodreads goal of 60 books, completed a couple of reading challenges with other bloggers (20 Books of Summer and Nonfiction November), in addition to two personal challenges (A Year of Elizabeth Strout and A Year of Maggie O'Farrell). I discovered several new authors and am eager to read more from their backlists. I don't have any goals for 2026 other than to read more from my own stacks, especially those books that are over 400 pages. 

Now for the fun stats!

Total Books Read: 67

Print Books: 56

Audiobooks: 11

ebooks: 0

Female Authors: 55

Male Authors: 12

New-To-Me Authors: 21

Fiction: 54

Nonfiction: 13

General Fiction: 36

Classics: 0

Poetry: 0

Historical Fiction: 5

Horror: 0

Science Fiction/Fantasy: 2

Time Travel: 0

Dystopia: 0

Mystery/Thrillers: 10

Westerns: 0

Epistolary: 1

Childrens: 0

Young Adult: 0

Memoir: 9

Travel/Food: 1

Nature/Science: 1

Essays: 0

Rereads: 7

Debuts: 6

Over 400 pages: 6

Over 500 pages: 2

Over 600 pages: 1

ARCs: 7

Borrowed from Library: 10

Borrowed: 2

From My Stacks: 48

Total Pages Read: 19,410

Total Hours Listened: 128 hours and 23 minutes

Backlist: 56

Published in 2025: 10

To Be Published in 2026: 1

Ratings:

5 stars: 6

4.5 stars: 17

4 stars: 18

3.5 stars: 13

3 stars: 7

2 stars: 6

Top Picks of 2025 (5 stars):

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

A Far-flung Life by M. L. Stedman

Honorable Mentions:

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

So Far Gone by Jess Walter

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Tin Man by Sarah Winman

Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The Names by Florence Knapp

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons

We Spread by Iain Reid

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

The Next Day by Melinda Gates

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

Find my previous Year End Surveys and Top Pick lists here.

A Far-flung Life

 

A Far-flung Life by M. L. Stedman

Fiction

2026

Finished on December 27, 2025

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Release Date: March 3, 2026

Publisher's Blurb:

From the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Light Between Oceans comes a breathtaking and epic novel set in the vast outback of Australia about tragedy, family secrets, and the enduring power of love.

When we do something that can't be undone or mended, how do we go on living? How do we find our North Star when there is no right answer? These are the questions at the center of M. L. Stedman's unforgettable and magisterial new novel A Far-flung Life, a sweeping and epic story of a family, a tragedy, and the aftermath that reverberates for decades.

Remote Western Australia, 1958: here, for generations, the MacBrides have lived on a vast sheep station, Meredith Downs. It is a million acres, an ocean of arid land. On an ordinary day, on a lonely road, under the unending blue sky, patriarch Phil MacBride serves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds the lives of the entire MacBride family are shattered. And then, tragedy revisits when a twist of consequences claims the life of one sibling and leads another to give up everything for the sake of an innocent child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, is blunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide. The secrets at the heart of this gutting and beautiful story force him to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.

A Far-flung Life is a tale about family and belonging, fate and time. It is about people trying to do their best and each, for private reasons, seeking shelter from the storm of life. Can a fleeting moment unravel a whole life, mar it indelibly and irrevocably? Can compassion, resilience, and forgiveness allow us to come to terms with our human imperfections? These are the questions Stedman asks in her profoundly moving, uplifting, and luminous new novel about what the heart can endure for the sake of love.

It's been thirteen years since The Light Between Oceans was published. I received an ARC of that debut novel and gave it a perfect 5-star rating. To say that I loved it is an understatement. 

And thus, I was thrilled to receive an ARC of M. L. Stedman's new novel, and as soon as I wrapped up my Elizabeth Strout marathon, I dove right into A Far-flung Life. I couldn't have loved it more. What a remarkable story. It's one of loss, grief, love, and dark secrets. The characters are strongly defined and I ached for the MacBride family who had more than their share of heartaches. Stedman's setting is vivid, the heat and dust practically jumping off the pages.

It's hard country, out this way. Back in England, a farm might support two or three sheep per acre. Here, with the lack of rainfall, you need more like forty acres per sheep. There is heat. There is sun. But on winter nights the water in the tanks will freeze over. The searing light that coaxes life into being here will bleach it out of existence with the same indifferent shrug, leaving blanched trees, and rusted corrugated iron on the roofs of abandoned homesteads. The wind that brings the rain can bring floods and flatten shearing sheds. Everything that can do you good can also do you harm here--that's just the way of it.

This land has seen improbable things: the evolution of marsupials and monotremes; of flightless birds and animals that fly. It's seen continents split and islands arise. It's seen oceans turn to desert and desert turn to glaciers. And it's watched people drag their little lives across its surface, flat and unforgiving. 

and

In the homestead at Meredith Downs, silence is a canvas on which each sound trails like a color. The wind; a single fly; the clatter of a pan; the distant barking of a kelpie; the banging of a flywire door. There is no continuous murmur of traffic. No vague stream of voices. Each sound emerges for its solo, then fades into stillness, into a silence so complete it makes music of your heartbeat in your ears.

A Far-flung Life is a compulsively readable literary work, and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. It will likely become a book club favorite, and it will linger in my mind for years to come. I am so pleased to have finished out the year with a 5-star read, and look forward to re-reading this beautiful gem. It's a keeper.

Highly recommend!

I received a complimentary copy from Goodreads. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Tell Me Everything

 

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Amgash, #5

Fiction

2024

Finished on December 21, 2025

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

With her "extraordinary capacity for radical empathy" (The Boston Globe), remarkable insight into the human condition, and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, "What does anyone's life mean?"

It's autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on th eedge of town. The two spend afternoons together in Olive's apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known--"unrecorded lives," Olive calls them--reanimating them and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, "Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love."

And with that, I have completed my personal challenge to read all of Elizabeth Strout's novels. I won't lie--I was very sad to say goodbye to all of her wonderful characters whom I've grown to love over the past year. Back-to-back reading of the final three books in the Amgash series was certainly a great way to immerse myself in Strout's world, and I loved how she included 23 of her characters from her earlier novels. The author has a new book coming out in 2026, but it's a departure from her previous works, so who knows if we'll ever hear anymore from Olive or Lucy.

Oprah Daily, September 2024

Oprah Daily, September 2024

Tell Me Everything is a marvelous novel. I'm sure some readers would be perfectly content reading it as a stand-alone, but there are so many back stories, that I feel it shouldn't be read until the earlier books in the Amgash series have been read. Part of the joy of this book is seeing the interactions between so many of Strout's characters.

A couple of notable passages:

“Olive was silent for a long moment. Then she said, meditatively, “It’s quite a world we live in, isn’t it. For years I thought: I will miss all this when I die. But the way the world is these days, I sometimes think I’ll be damned glad to be dead.” She sat quietly looking ahead through the windshield. “I’ll still miss it, though,” she said. Bob was watching her. He said, “I like you, Olive.” “Phooey. Now help me get out of this car,” Olive replied.”

 and

“Lucy stood up and pulled on her coat. “Those are my stories,” she said, and then bent down to put her boots back on. “But you’re right. They are stories of loneliness and love.” Lucy stepped into the tiny kitchen for a moment and returned with a paper towel and she bent down and soaked up the drops of water on the floor left from her boots. Then she picked up her bag and said, “And the small connections we make in this world if we are lucky.” And then to Olive’s amazement, Lucy said, smiling at her with a gentleness on her face, “And I feel that way about you. A connection. Love. So thank you.” She moved toward the door. Olive said, “Wait.” As Lucy turned, Olive said, “Well, phooey. I feel connected to you too. So there.” She stuck out her tongue.”

I don't know if I'll re-read all of Strout's books since I've already re-read a few, but I know that I'll come back to Tell Me Everything (maybe on audio) in a few years.

Highly recommend!

Lucy by the Sea

 

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

Amgash, #4

Fiction

2022

Finished on December 17, 2025

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

With her trademark crystalline prose, Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it's just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody sea.

Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we're apart--the pain of a beloved daughter's suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.

If you hadn't noticed, I've been reading (and re-reading) a lot of Elizabeth Strout's novels this year. After re-reading Olive, Again, I jumped back into Strout's Amgash series which focuses mainly on Lucy Barton and her friends and relatives. I was somewhat disappointed with Oh William! but once I finished that book, I immediately picked up Lucy by the Sea and was instantly engrossed. I can't explain why, but I don't mind reading books set during the pandemic. I know a lot of people would like to forget about those first years during lockdown, but I like to revisit those months, reminding myself just how far we've come. Strout reminds her readers how especially scary it was to be a New Yorker during the first year of pandemic, and I am forever grateful that we live in a small community, mostly isolated from large crowds. (I've written about those early years here.)

Notable Passages:

Here is what I did not know that morning in March: I did not know that I would never see my apartment again. I did not know that one of my friends a family member would die of this virus. I did not know that my relationship with my daughters would change in ways I could never have anticipated. I did not know that my entire life would become something new.

 

Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us.

 

I thought then that William had been right to bring me up here, where I could walk freely even if I didn't see many people. The question of why some people are luckier than others--I have no answer for this.

 

It has been said that the second year of widowhood is worse than the first--the idea being, I think, that the shock has worn off and now one has to simply live with the loss...

And I also understood: Grief is a private thing. God, is it a private thing. 

 

It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us. 

In any case, Lucy by the Sea was a much more relatable and moving story than Oh William!, despite sharing the same anecdotal first-person delivery that I disliked in Oh William! I came to care about Lucy as I eventually did with Olive Kitteridge, and enjoyed seeing all the familiar faces that have been such a big part of Strout's stories. As soon as I finished this book, I happily picked up Tell Me Everything, the 5th in the Amgash series.

Heartwarming as well as somber ... Although simple on the surface, Strout's new novel manages, like her other, to encompass love and friendship, joy and anxiety, grief and grievances, loneliness and shame--and a troubling sense of growing unrest and division in America.... Strout's understanding of the human condition is capacious. ~NPR

Highly recommend, but should be read in order, at least with the Amgash books. 

Oh William!

 

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

Amgash, #3

Fiction

2021

Finished on December 15, 2025

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William."

Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. "William," she confesses, "has always been a mystery to me." Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years. They just are.

So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret--one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together--even after we've grown apart.

When I first started reading Elizabeth Strout's novels, I didn't care about her characters. I eventually came to love Olive Kitteridge, but I have yet to feel the same about Lucy Barton. Oh William! is Strout's third installment in her Amgash series, in which Lucy is the central character. Narrated in first person, and speaking to the reader, we are privy to Lucy's thoughts and emotions. She and her first husband have remained friends of a sort, and Lucy expresses her fondness and exasperation toward William, as well as grieving the death of her second husband. 

Grief is such a--oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you.

She reflects on her lonely childhood, and the lack of love and nurturing from her mother. She also speaks about her relationship with William's mother, who is very present in their lives during their marriage. This is a quiet, character-driven story that unfolds slowly. It reads like a conversation between two friends, with abrupt interruptions in a train of thought or memory. Many of Strout's paragraphs begin with statements such as these:

 "I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William."

 "Also (I suddenly remembered this too) ..." 

 "What I mean to say"

 “I don’t want to say any more about that...”

Since I have two other books by Strout to read (Lucy by the Sea is up next), I pushed through to finish this one even though it's not one that I can recommend. Had it been longer (I read it in less than two nights), I may have given up. Overall, a disappointment.

My reviews of the other books in this series:

My Name is Lucy Barton (4/5)

Anything is Possible (3/5)

Olive, Again

 

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

Fiction

2019

Finished on December 12, 2025 (second reading)

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Elizabeth Strout brilliantly lays bare the inner lives of ordinary people, none more eloquently than the protagonist of her universally acclaimed Olive Kitteridge. "Funny, wicked and remorseful, Mrs. Kitteridge is a compelling life force, a red-blooded original," declared the San Francisco Chronicle. "When she's not onstage, we look forward to her return."

And now Olive has indeed returned, as indomitable as ever, navigating her next decade and the changes--sometimes welcome, sometimes not--in her own life. Here is Olive, strangely confident in her second marriage, in an evolving relationship with her son and his family, and crossing paths with a cast of memorable characters in the seaside town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth at a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the irascible Olive improbably touches the lives of everyone around her. 

I won't write too much about this book since I reviewed it three years ago. I can't explain why it wasn't a 5-star read for me the second time around, but I did enjoy it. I even marked passages that I didn't notice during my first reading.

Here is the thing that Cindy, for the rest of her life, would never forget: Olive Kitteridge said, "My God, but I have always loved the light in February." Olive shook her head slowly. "My God," she repeated, with awe in her voice. "Just look at that February light."

and

Loneliness. Oh, the loneliness!

It blistered Olive.

She had not known such a feeling her entire life; this is what she thought as she moved about the house. It may have been the terror finally wearing off and giving way for this gaping bright universe of loneliness that she faced, but it bewildered her to feel this. She realized it was as though she had--all her life--four big wheels beneath her, without even knowing it, of course, and now they were, all four of them, wobbling and about to come off. She did not know who she was, or what would happen to her.

One day she sat in the big chair that Jack used to sit in and she thought she had become pathetic. If there was one thing Olive hated, it was pathetic people. And now she was one of them. 

and

As soon as it got dark she tucked herself into her little single bed and watched television. The news was amazing to her. And this helped her. The country was in terrible disarray, and Olive found this interesting. At times she thought fascism might be knocking on the door of the country, but then she would think, Oh, I'll die soon, who cares. Sometimes she thought of Christopher and all his kids and she felt worried about their future, but then she would think: There's nothing I can do about it, everything is going to hell.

Olive is brash and outspoken, and yet underneath all of her gruffness and lack of filter, she's quite loveable. I  hope she plays a prominent role in another book by Strout.

Rather than link to my earlier review, I'm including it here:

Marvelous! Was it insomnia that led me to finish this book at 1:30 in the morning or the mere fact that I couldn't put it down? After reading the final page, I kept thinking about Olive and the motley cast of characters in this follow-up to Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize winner, Olive Kitteridge. Truthfully, I had to force myself to turn off the light and not start rereading from the beginning of the book.

In 2014 I read Olive Kitteridge (giving it a second chance after previously quitting on the audiobook) in preparation to watching the four-part HBO mini-series of the same name. I not only fell in love with Strout's writing, but came to care about Olive, warts and all. 

Olive, Again is an outstanding follow-up and does not disappoint. In similar fashion to the original novel, this book is comprised of thirteen vignettes. Olive takes center stage in most chapters, but is only a passing figure in others. I especially enjoyed the presence of characters from other novels by Strout (Isabelle from Amy & Isabelle was an unexpected treat!) and I'm now inspired to go back and reread each of her books. 

Having watched Frances McDormand in the lead role of the mini-series, I had a vivid picture of Olive, laughing out loud at her caustic remarks while feeling a tug of sadness and empathy as her life grew emptier and lonelier. I felt an ache of melancholy as I turned the last page, not ready to leave Olive, with whom I felt a strong connection as she reflected upon her life as a wife and mother in her final years. Thankfully, I have copies of both books for future reading and plan to rewatch the TV drama. 

Olive, Again is a poignant glimpse into aging, while providing levity with hilarious one-liners by the irascible and blunt heroine of Olive Kitteridge. Highly recommend!

The Marriage Portrait

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

Historical Fiction

2022

Finished on December 8, 2025

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the author of the New York Times best seller Hamnet--winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Women's Prize for fiction--an electrifying new novel set in Renaissance Italy and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now make her way in a trouble court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court's eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferrarese dynasty. Until then, for all her rank and nobility, the new duchess's future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the drama and verve with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life and offers an unforgettable portrait of a resilient young woman's battle for her very survival.

Bravo! I love this novel! Maggie O'Farrell is a consummate storyteller, and The Marriage Portrait may be her best book yet. With vivid settings and strongly defined characters, O'Farrell transports her readers to 16th century Italy. 

The sky above her head is vast, stretching from the tops of the cypresses all the way to the distant peaks of the Apennines, which can be seen, far off, in the purple-grey haze. As she walks beneath it, she is aware of its spectrum shifts, from the pink of sunrise, to red, to orange.

This, she thinks. All this. The cypresses like rows of upended paintbrushes, waiting for the giant hand of an artist, the low and subjugated wind, the jagged line of mountains drawn in charcoal on the horizon, the muted calls of servants to each other, somewhere behind her, the open doors of the villa, the clink of bells around the necks of cattle, the lines and lines of fruit trees that open into avenues as she walks by. She wants this. She feels the bliss of it all on her skin, like the graze of drizzle after a parching drought. She can take the other, she can bear it, if it means she can have this. She will exchange that for this. She will, she can.

Narrated in alternating timelines, the suspense of Lucrezia's future kept me reading late into the night. And yet I read slowly, savoring the prose, visualizing each scene and introduction of new characters.

The gown rustles and slides around her, speaking a glossolalia all of its own, the silk moving against the rougher nap of the underskirts, the bone supports of the bodice straining and squealing against their coverings, the cuffs scuffing and chafing the skin of her wrists, the stiffened collar hooking and nibbling at her nape, the hip supports creaking like the rigging of a ship. It is a symphony, an orchestra of fabrics, and Lucrezia would like to cover her ears, but she cannot.

While I have enjoyed several of her contemporary novels, O'Farrell talent shines in her dramatic historical fiction. I can't wait to read her upcoming 2026 release, Land, a multi-generational historical epic set in Ireland during the Great Famine. 

Highly recommend. I was tempted to re-read it the moment I finished!