Elizabeth Strout Books in Order

In the sweltering heat of a mill town summer, the relationship between a shy teenager and her single mother is shattered when the girl's affair with a math teacher is discovered. The fallout forces them to confront the walls of silence they have built around their lives.

Set in 1950s Maine, this novel follows a reverend struggling to maintain his faith and his congregation after the tragic death of his wife. As he battles his own grief and rumors in the town, he tries to protect his young daughter from the darkness closing in.

A collection of thirteen narratives centered on a blunt, formidable schoolteacher in a small coastal town. Through the lens of her neighbors and family, the book builds a complex portrait of a woman who is quick to judge but also capable of profound, if quiet, understanding.

Guest edited by Elizabeth Strout, this Spring 2010 issue of Ploughshares pairs fiction and poetry with reviews and an editor profile. Its contributors include Amy Hempel, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Gordon, Linda Pastan, and Paula Bohince; cover art is by Varujan Boghosian.

Elizabeth Strout serves as guest editor for this annual collection of 20 short stories selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines. The volume features writers including Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, George Saunders, and Junot Díaz, with an emphasis on distinctive narrative voices.

Two brothers who escaped their difficult childhood in Maine for successful lives in New York are called back home when their sister's son commits a thoughtless, controversial act. The return forces them to confront the long-buried tensions that have shaped their family dynamic.

A career-spanning selection of more than thirty Frederick Busch stories, chosen and introduced by Elizabeth Strout. The collection examines intimate, often unsettled lives, focusing on family, desire, loss, and the emotional pressures beneath ordinary experience.

This anthology presents work by twenty-one emerging writers, edited by Bruce Pratt and Elizabeth Strout. Its short fiction portrays varied American lives, including family strain, immigration, mental illness, aging, and the changes that reshape personal relationships.

While recovering from an operation in a New York hospital, a writer is visited by her estranged mother. Their simple gossip about people from home reveals the deep love and tension of their bond, as well as the poverty and abuse of the childhood the writer tried to escape.

This collection of interconnected stories returns to the rural town of Amgash, Illinois, to explore the lives of the people Lucy Barton left behind. The narratives reveal the struggles, secrets, and quiet dignities of characters grappling with poverty and the desire for connection.

Olive Kitteridge returns in this follow-up, navigating a new marriage and the inevitable indignities of aging in Crosby, Maine. Despite her prickly nature, she finds herself unexpectedly involved in the lives of her neighbors, from a lawyer hiding a secret to a woman in labor at a baby shower.

Lucy Barton reconnects with her first husband, William, as they embark on a trip to Maine to uncover a family secret. The journey forces them to examine their shared history, their failed marriage, and the enduring, complex love that remains between them.

As the pandemic strikes, Lucy Barton is whisked away by her ex-husband William to a house on the coast of Maine. Isolated together, they navigate their anxieties about the world and their complicated past, finding comfort in their shared history.

Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge finally cross paths in Crosby, Maine, spending their afternoons swapping stories of "unrecorded lives." Against the backdrop of a local murder investigation involving Bob Burgess, the novel explores the deep need for human connection.

Artie Dam, a popular history teacher, lives a seemingly contented life until a sudden revelation forces him to question everything. Plagued by isolation and a new secret, he must chart a new course for his relationships and his understanding of truth.