Resident Book Review of “Anything is Possible”

Resident Chilton Knudsen will review “Anything is Possible” by Elizabeth Strout [New York: Random House, 2017] on Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at 7 PM in the Auditorium. This is the review she wrote in The Sunburst, June 2026.

Elizabeth Strout has received many awards for her literary fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize for her international bestseller Olive Kittredge. Many elements go into good fiction: plot, setting, narrative, character development. This author is widely recognized for her skill in presenting characters which the reader quickly identifies and comes to know in all their flawed and grace-filled humanity.

Anything is Possible, like most of her novels, is a series of connected vignettes, this one set in a small rural Pennsylvania town. The characters go about their lives, carrying with them personal histories and painful secrets. For many, there is no happy ending. Rather, people adapt to their circumstances: there is a quiet heroism in just keeping on.  But once in a while a dramatic breakthrough happens, often in the context of illness or death.

Chilton has met Elizabeth Strout and notes with appreciation that she “has the good sense to live in Maine.” She found the author, like her fiction, to be warm-hearted and reserved. Come and hear more at the June Book Review!

Chilton Knudsen, a long-time resident of Charlestown, is a retired Episcopal bishop. She served as Bishop of Maine from 1997 to 2008, and more recently has continued to serve in a variety of church leadership capacities throughout the country. She is a regular contributor to Book Review.