Author Guide · Literary Fiction
Books Written by
Elizabeth Strout says Olive Kitteridge “just showed up” while she was at the dishwasher: a woman standing by a picnic table, thinking, “It’s high time everybody left.” The thirteen linked stories that grew from that sentence won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009 and became an HBO series with Frances McDormand that won eight Emmys. Strout, born in Portland, Maine, in 1956, practised law briefly before she published her first novel at 42. Since then her characters have crossed from book to book: Olive, the writer Lucy Barton and the lawyer Bob Burgess finally share a town in Tell Me Everything (2024). Her eleventh novel, The Things We Never Say (2026), is on the Booker Prize shortlist. This guide covers her 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1998–2026 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Elizabeth Strout has published eleven novels. The best known are Olive Kitteridge (2008), which won the Pulitzer Prize, My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016), Olive, Again (2019), Oh William! (2021) and Tell Me Everything (2024). Start with Olive Kitteridge; then follow Lucy Barton, whose five books lead into the same Maine town.
Where to Start with Elizabeth Strout
If you want her defining book
→ Olive Kitteridge (2008) — thirteen linked stories and the Pulitzer Prize.
If you want the most personal register
→ My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016) — five days in a hospital room with her mother.
If you want her characters together
→ Tell Me Everything (2024) — Olive, Lucy and Bob Burgess in one town.
If you want something completely new
→ The Things We Never Say (2026) — a new cast and her third Booker nomination.
11 Elizabeth Strout Books, in Order
Amy and Isabelle
Over one hot summer in the mill town of Shirley Falls, Maine, the single mother Isabelle Goodrow and her sixteen-year-old daughter Amy are barely speaking after Isabelle discovers Amy’s affair with her maths teacher. Her debut was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and became a television film starring Elisabeth Shue, produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films.
Abide with Me
In a small Maine town in the late 1950s, the young minister Tyler Caskey is grieving his wife while his congregation watches him closely and his small daughter Katherine withdraws into silence. It is her only novel set entirely in the past, and her least known.
Olive Kitteridge
Thirteen linked stories set in the coastal town of Crosby, Maine, over about 25 years. Olive, a maths teacher at the junior high who is blunt, sometimes cruel and sometimes very kind, is the centre of some stories and a passer-by in others; her husband Henry, the town pharmacist, and their son Christopher are the people she hurts most. It won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. HBO adapted it in 2014 as a four-part series with Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Bill Murray, which won eight Emmys, including Outstanding Limited Series.
The Burgess Boys
Jim and Bob Burgess, two lawyers who left Shirley Falls, Maine, for New York, are called home when their sister Susan’s teenage son throws a pig’s head into a mosque used by the town’s Somali community. The case reopens the childhood accident that has shaped all three siblings. Bob Burgess returns in her later books.
My Name Is Lucy Barton
In the mid-1980s Lucy Barton, a young writer, lies in a New York hospital for weeks after an operation, and her mother, whom she has not seen in years, sits by her bed for five days. They talk about neighbours from Amgash, Illinois, never about the poverty and harm of Lucy’s childhood. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and a number-one New York Times bestseller, it was staged in London in 2018 as a one-woman play with Laura Linney.
Anything Is Possible
Linked stories about the people of Amgash, Illinois, and the towns around it — the people Lucy Barton left behind — including her brother and sister, whom she visits after seventeen years away. It won The Story Prize for 2017.
Olive, Again
The sequel follows Olive from her seventies into her eighties in Crosby: a second marriage to Jack Kennison, a widower she once disliked, a difficult relationship with her son, and the indignities of old age. As in the first book, some stories are hers and some only pass through her. It was an Oprah’s Book Club pick.
Oh William!
Lucy Barton, now a widow, goes with her first husband William on a trip to Maine after he learns that his mother had a daughter she left behind before he was born. It was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.
Lucy by the Sea
In March 2020, as the pandemic reaches New York, William takes Lucy out of Manhattan to a rented house on the Maine coast. Over the lockdown months she worries about her daughters and gets to know the town, including Bob Burgess. Strout wrote it during the pandemic.
Tell Me Everything
One autumn in Crosby, Bob Burgess defends a lonely man accused of killing his mother, while Lucy Barton visits Olive Kitteridge, now in a retirement home, and the two trade stories about what Olive calls “unrecorded lives”. It brings her three best-known characters into one book and was an Oprah’s Book Club pick.
The Things We Never Say
Artie Dam, a 57-year-old history teacher on the Massachusetts coast, has a long marriage to Evie, a therapist, and spends weekends sailing on Massachusetts Bay, yet feels alone, until his grown son Rob tells him a secret. It has a new cast, away from Maine and Lucy Barton, and was shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize; the winner is announced on 9 November 2026.
In What Order to Read Elizabeth Strout
Each book can be read on its own, but her characters keep returning, so publication order pays off. The Lucy Barton books run My Name Is Lucy Barton, Anything Is Possible, Oh William! and Lucy by the Sea; the Olive books are Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again. Bob Burgess, from The Burgess Boys, comes back in Lucy by the Sea.
All three lines meet in Tell Me Everything, so save that one until you know Olive, Lucy and Bob. Amy and Isabelle, Abide with Me and The Things We Never Say stand alone, although Amy and Isabelle and The Burgess Boys share the town of Shirley Falls.
A reading path
1. Olive Kitteridge (2008)
2. My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016)
3. Oh William! (2021)
4. Olive, Again (2019)
5. Tell Me Everything (2024)
Everything Else Elizabeth Strout Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
As editor
1
1 book · 2013
- 2013The Best American Short Stories 2013guest editor of the annual anthology
The years · 1956–2026
Quick facts about Elizabeth Strout
- Known for
- Elizabeth Strout is known for linked, closely observed fiction about ordinary people in small-town Maine, above all the Pulitzer-winning Olive Kitteridge and the Lucy Barton novels.
- 1956
- Born in Portland, Maine
- 1998
- First novel, Amy and Isabelle
- 2008
- Olive Kitteridge
- 2026
- Booker shortlist for The Things We Never Say
- Born
- 6 January 1956, Portland, Maine; grew up in small towns in Maine and in Durham, New Hampshire
- Education
- Bates College, 1977; law degree, Syracuse University College of Law, 1982
- Before fiction
- Worked briefly as a lawyer; taught at Borough of Manhattan Community College
- Lives
- New York City and Brunswick, Maine
- Married
- James Tierney, former Attorney General of Maine, in 2011
- Honours
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2009); The Story Prize (for 2017); Booker shortlists in 2022 and 2026
The red mark is 2008: Olive Kitteridge, which won the Pulitzer Prize the next year.
How Elizabeth Strout Writes: Scenes on the Kitchen Table
Strout has said she has never written anything from beginning to end. She writes scenes and fragments by hand, spreads the sheets out on a large table and moves them around until she sees which ones connect; the ones that do not work end up on the floor and then in the wastebasket. Many of her books are linked stories rather than continuous novels, and the method shows in their shape.
Her people are ordinary: teachers, a pharmacist, a minister, lawyers, a writer from a poor family. She keeps them in a handful of places — Crosby and Shirley Falls in Maine, Amgash in Illinois — and lets them reappear, sometimes as the centre of a story and sometimes only in passing. Her sentences are short and plain; she has said she tries never to show off, and that “everything about everybody is extraordinary.”
Shame, class and what families cannot say to each other run through all of it, from Isabelle Goodrow’s secrets to Lucy Barton’s mother. For writers with the same patience for ordinary lives, from Alice Munro to Anne Tyler, see Authors like Elizabeth Strout.
Watch
Elizabeth Strout on bringing Olive back
Strout talks to Waterstones about the return of Olive Kitteridge in Olive, Again and about growing older.
Frequently asked questions about Elizabeth Strout’s books
How many books has Elizabeth Strout written?
Eleven novels, from Amy and Isabelle (1998) to The Things We Never Say (2026); three of them, Olive Kitteridge, Anything Is Possible and Olive, Again, are made of linked stories. All 11 are on this page. She also edited The Best American Short Stories 2013.
What are Elizabeth Strout’s books in order?
Amy and Isabelle (1998), Abide with Me (2006), Olive Kitteridge (2008), The Burgess Boys (2013), My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016), Anything Is Possible (2017), Olive, Again (2019), Oh William! (2021), Lucy by the Sea (2022), Tell Me Everything (2024) and The Things We Never Say (2026).
What is the best Elizabeth Strout book to start with?
Olive Kitteridge. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is her most widely read book, and because it is made of linked stories you can feel her range quickly. If you prefer one continuous voice, start with My Name Is Lucy Barton.
What is Elizabeth Strout’s most famous book?
Olive Kitteridge (2008), which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize and became the 2014 HBO series with Frances McDormand that won eight Emmys.
Are Elizabeth Strout’s novels connected?
Many are. Olive Kitteridge appears in Olive Kitteridge, Olive, Again and Tell Me Everything; Lucy Barton in five books; Bob Burgess in The Burgess Boys, Lucy by the Sea and Tell Me Everything, where all three meet. Amy and Isabelle, Abide with Me and The Things We Never Say stand on their own.
What are the Lucy Barton books in order?
My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016), Anything Is Possible (2017), Oh William! (2021), Lucy by the Sea (2022) and Tell Me Everything (2024). In Anything Is Possible Lucy is mostly seen through the people of her home town.
Which Elizabeth Strout books have been adapted?
Olive Kitteridge became a four-part HBO series in 2014, directed by Lisa Cholodenko, with Frances McDormand as Olive. Amy and Isabelle was made into a television film with Elisabeth Shue. My Name Is Lucy Barton was adapted for the stage by Rona Munro and performed by Laura Linney at the Bridge Theatre in London in 2018.
Has Elizabeth Strout won the Booker Prize?
Not so far. She has been nominated three times: My Name Is Lucy Barton was longlisted in 2016, Oh William! shortlisted in 2022, and The Things We Never Say is on the 2026 shortlist, with the winner announced on 9 November 2026.
Is Elizabeth Strout from Maine?
Yes. She was born in Portland, Maine, in 1956 and grew up in small towns in Maine and in Durham, New Hampshire. She now divides her time between New York City and Brunswick, Maine, where most of her fiction is set.
Is Elizabeth Strout’s fiction autobiographical?
Not directly. Lucy Barton, a writer from a poor family who moves to New York, is the character most often read as close to her, but Strout has said: “I’m not Lucy, but I feel like I understand her very, very well.”
Footnotes
- Elizabeth Strout — Wikipedia
- Olive Kitteridge (miniseries) — Wikipedia
- Elizabeth Strout — The Booker Prizes
- Here’s the shortlist for the 2026 Booker Prize — Lit Hub
- Novelist Elizabeth Strout interviewed by Bates College President Spencer — Bates College, 2017
- Elizabeth Strout on why readers mean more than winning the Booker Prize — Penguin, 2022
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I’ve come to recognise a truthful sentence.”
— Elizabeth Strout, interview with Penguin (2022)
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations