“We are all mythologies. Mysterious. We are all mysteries, is what I mean. This may be the only thing in the world I know to be true.”

This is absolutely the strongest book I’ve read from this author. It is slightly recursive, as all her books seem to be—which will bother some people in the same way as the pet peeve I have: When a character thinks something and then immediately says that thing. I get it. It’s endearing, maybe funny (to some people). But I find it so annoying, and Lucy does this multiple times. Lucy gets away with a lot, with me, though. Mostly because she’s most affecting when she’s a little bit fumbling. She would call this “honest”, probably.

In this, I don’t know if there is a word for it but I call them eulogy novels, there is a central figure that is being spoken to and has since passed. Recently or otherwise. There is a quality akin to an exorcism to them. Not scary, but cathartic. Working through something typically quite painful, or working it’s way to a thought like an epiphany, only smaller. This is exactly that, and I like this trend.

Also, many of the themes introduced in the first two books, and which Strout was not Quite there on (for me), land here; and they land well. The trajectory of a life in question due to the early patterns, particularly around poverty, in particular, feel like what Strout has been trying to say these past books. Here, because there is the shape of what has past (if you read the previous books) and the choices that seem inevitable for the characters, though unknown to the reader, transgress into the hyper reality of good fiction. In which something becomes about the human condition, and therefor about seemingly everything.

Perhaps this is because I grew up in poverty and feel exactly the way it is articulated here. Not close to it. Exactly like this. To have it mirrored in a way that touches many of the characters that have been mining this, feels impactful in a way none of the other books were. With the small caveat, just like the previous book, I really don’t know how I would feel about this had I not read the previous ones. Would it be a 5 star read? I’m not sure. Certainly an4 star. Together, though, I can tell you this book feels like a modern classic. And, thankfully, the sentimentality is struck perfectly here—again, in a way that didn’t quite hit the mark previously. Slightly too sickly sweet and self-help, peppered with an unearned moment or two. This is, I am happy to say, very well earned.