The smaller story is that Bob Burgess is a small town attorney who is going to defend a man accused of killing his mother.

This is set against a wondrous backdrop of LIFE. Elizabeth Strout returns with characters from some of her previous novels. All of them, including Bob, are here to tell you not only their own stories but those of many others.

They're called unrecorded stories in this novel. They could be anyone's story. Including yours. Definitely including mine.

Who are we? What mark do we leave on this world? Any? Does it matter?

These are the weighty questions I pondered while reading this book.

In my opinion, you have to be in a certain mood to sit down with a book like this. I have a love/hate relationship with the author's writing style. Typical for me, I sat down and opened to the first pages with anticipation. A few chapters in, I wondered if I could stand to read further. A quarter way in there was no way I was going to stop.

It's a familiar feeling for me with her books.

These characters are made up in the mind of the author, but by the end I felt like I knew, and liked, several of them.

I'm going to refer to the above love/hate comment about her writing style. It grows on me, but I have to get used to it each time. It's off-putting, in my opinion. On the other hand, it clearly doesn't stop me from reading every word.

Life is life. small. GRAND. Some days both at the same time.

This is me waxing philosophical.

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Created Jul 12, 2025 at 8:04pm • Submit your own review...