Pulitz. Prize Author Elizabeth Stout's "Anything is Possible" Ties Her Last Heroine Lucy Bates but Doesn't Rate

Elizabeth Stout (b Amer 1956) is a best selling novelist.  Her novel "Olive Kitteridge" received the Pulitzer Prize (2008) and was made into a mini-series starting Bill Murray & France McDormand.  She maintains repeating motifs dealing with the struggle to rise above one's station in life.  Her novel "Olive…" was structured with numerous characters set in a small town whose lives intertwine in unexpected and rewarding ways.  The story seemed a loose string of adept novellas bound together into a cohesive & clever novel.  Stout's previous novel "My Name is Lucy Barton" was met with critical & financial success.  The heroine Lucy Barton is brought into "Anything is Possible" as the fulcrum for the tangential characters are either family members or have connections to her, her family or her childhood  hometown.  Having left behind her impoverished & bleak small town, Lucy has achieved success as a writer having moved to Chicago.  The undercurrent of this ambitious but unsatisfying novel is the overbearing weight of inertia.  The prevalent despair impairs consideration of the possibilities for obtaining love, happiness and fulfillment.  Annie is the doppelgänger for Lucy. They're  from the same place, both raised in poverty with a dysfunctional family but managed to tear themselves away and achieve a modicum of joy & acceptance in the art world.  They escaped from the binds that stagnate their peers.  Lucy is an acclaimed writer & Annie an actress of recognition.  They both take a return visit home to visit their family.  For Lucy it brought on a panic attack and for Annie, an epiphany.  Annie realizes her siblings lack passion & curiosity.  "Her brother and sister, good respectable, decent fair-minded, had never known the passion that caused a person to risk everything they had, everything they held dear heedlessly put in danger - simply to be near the white dazzle of the sun that somehow for those moments seemed to leave the world behind."   Stout's characters are not all decent & respectable.  Several characters are layered in shame for their cruel & immoral acts.  And, still others feel the uncontrolled assault of shame knowing its unwarranted.  The droves of story lines veer into so many tangents it makes the story too disjointed.  The unifying theme is that as humans we're all just a mess trying the hardest we know how;  capable of loving, but loving imperfectly.  Humans are hard wired to always look for ways to feel superior.  Still, people can surprise with kindness and their keen abilities to express things in just the right way. Thomas Wolf said "You can't go home again."  Annie's grandmother told her "Don't come back. Don't get married.  Don't have children.  All these things will bring heartache."  "Anything is Possible" proves Stout is still at the top of her writing acumen.  Her crafty writing is packed with sharp-witted observations.  The massive consensus is that happiness is rare.  The dismal tone and fractured demanding structure make "Anything…" difficult to embrace.