“To Strout, writing is an act of revelation. And she is always writing, often in her studio above a nearby store. She’s amazed that Lucy returned for a fourth novel, but here she is.”
Karen Heller, “Elizabeth Strout has ‘millions of stories to tell’,” Book World, Washington Post, September 22, 2022.
Erik Tanner for The New York Times
“‘I’ve taught myself how to get these sentences down, how to know when they’re worth getting down,’ said Strout, 66. ‘It’s like I’ve been training for a marathon my entire life and now there’s an acceleration happening.’”
Elisabeth Egan, “At 66, Elizabeth Strout Has Reached Maximum Productivity,” New York Times, Sept. 3, 2022.
“‘What has motivated me for so many years to be a writer is the question: What does it feel like to be a different person?’
Like Ms. Strout’s other novels, Oh William! is primarily about how hard it is ever to know anyone, including ourselves. ‘Who we are is always mirrored back to us from different people, so our sense of self is always a little nebulous,’ she says.”
Emily Bobrow, “Novelist Elizabeth Strout Never Judges Her Characters,” Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2021.
“‘She honestly just showed up,’ Strout says. ‘I could see her in her car, nosing it into the marina.’ Olive had aged; she appeared to now be in her early 80s. ‘She was poking along with her cane. I just saw her so clearly that I thought, “OK, I guess I will have to write this down.’’””
I sat down for an interview with Mary Pols recently for the current issue of Maine Women Magazine.
Mary Pols, “Strout, Again,” Maine Women Magazine, July 31, 2019.“Strout has an aesthetic as spare as the white Congregational church, where her father’s funeral was held. The dramatic turns are understated — tone on tone — but the characters are nearly bursting with feeling. One of the central agonies of their lives tends to be an inability to communicate their internal state. It’s as if they needed Strout as an interlocutor.”
"Elizabeth Strout’s Long Homecoming" Ariel Levy, The New Yorker, April 24, 2017
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