Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two...

"Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are 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...

At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.

“As our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,” writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. “It’s the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are.” The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive...

En el borde del continente, en el pequeño pueblo de Crosby, Maine, vive Olive Kitteridge, una maestra de escuela jubilada que deplora los cambios en su pueblo y en el mundo en general, pero no siempre reconoce los cambios en quienes la rodean. At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn't always recognize...

"The uncannily relevant, deliciously clear-eyed collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning "American literary treasure" (Boston Globe), ripe for rediscovery--with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout. From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer--now 90 years old and at the top of her game--has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who "raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height." (Washington Post)...

A contemporary of Ann Beattie and Tobias Wolff, Frederick Busch was a master craftsman of the form; his subjects were single-event moments in so-called ordinary life. The stories in this volume, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout, are tales of families trying to heal their wounds, save their marriages, and rescue their children. In "Ralph the Duck, " a security guard struggles to hang on to his marriage. In "Name the Name, " a traveling...

The affairs of a deceptively placid New England town are told through the eyes of Olive Kitteridge, a woman with a wicked wit and a staunch moral center.