“The Hopper painting hung on the wall with an indifference so vast it began to feel personal, as though it had been painted for this moment”

The passage continues: “Your troubles are huge and meaningless, it seemed to say, there is only the sun on the side of the house.”  The troubles of the people in this illuminating book are vast indeed: no novelist, including Charles Dickens, reveals more clearly the grim scars of poverty and the shame that comes with every attempt to conceal those scars. Elizabeth Strout doesn’t flinch when she articulates the darkest insights of the people in this masterful work, who attempt to live with pain, even while they are able to see the sun, which they cannot imagine ever deserving.

Strout, Elizabeth. Anything Is Possible. Random House, 2017, p. 85.

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