Et cetera : What We're Reading: Anything Elizabeth Strout

If you love Anne Tyler, don't sleep on Elizabeth Strout. I'm currently making my way through Strout's 'Amgash' series, and she's giving Tyler a run for her money-gently exposing the underbelly of ordinary life in small-town America with stunning emotional clarity.

Book #1, 'My Name is Lucy Barton,' follows a writer who leaves behind childhood poverty in rural Illinois for a literary life on the East Coast. Strout's writing is a diamond in the rough-honest, clear, and quietly devastating. In Book #2, 'Anything Is Possible,' she expands the story into a network of deeply human short stories, all woven through with the struggles and silent battles that define us. At one point she writes, "as honest as a creek in Spring," and something ancient in me recognized the truth in that phrase-I nearly cried.

In Strout's world, everyone is extraordinary. And I am here for it. Happy reading, friends! ~Heather