Elizabeth Strout’s new “Tell Me Everything” may be exactly the book her fans have been waiting for because it unites all three of her most beloved characters.
Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess have circled each other throughout Strout’s ten books, mostly set in the fictional Maine towns of Shirley Falls and Crosby, but they appear together for the first time in “Tell Me,” which is about the stories we tell each other to survive.
Watching them interact — Bob and Lucy are close friends or maybe more, Olive and Lucy regularly meet to exchange stories — is the literary equivalent of Ironman, Spider-Man and the Hulk teaming up as the Avengers.
And it’s not just those characters. “Tell Me Everything” brings with it confirmation that the Pulitzer Prize winner has been creating an entire, imagined universe since her very first book.
Isabelle Daignault, one of the title characters of that 1998 debut, “Amy and Isabelle,” has popped up in several Strout books and she’s there again in “Tell Me Everything,” wavering about whether to move into a senior living complex. Isabelle also frets about her difficult relationship with daughter Amy, a topic that has occupied her for the 26 years since “Amy and Isabelle” appeared.
Strout’s books aren’t about plot, although there’s more plot than usual in “Tell Me” (Bob, an attorney, represents an artist accused of killing his mother). Her books are really about exploring characters so rich that they reveal more of themselves in book after book after book:

Amy and Isabelle (1998) — Strout’s least-populated novel zeroes in on the titular daughter and mother, whose closeness is challenged by trauma. You’d never know it’s the beginning of the author creating an expansive world, but Shirley Falls is the setting and there are glimpses of characters who will figure in future books. The biggie: Isabelle Daignault becomes close pals with Olive Kitteridge.

Abide With Me (2006) — Strout earned the most negative reviews of her career with her sophomore novel (some think its painful events wrap up too neatly) but it’s a treasure trove of characters Strout continues to write about.