Elizabeth Strout: "How many marriages live their whole lives dragging ghosts along?"

BarcelonaSince publishing Olive Kitteridge In 2008 –with which she won the Pulitzer and, later, the Llibreter prize–, the American Elizabeth Strout (Portland, Maine, 1956) has persisted in exploring his own fictional universe, populated by characters stunned by guilt and burdened by family setbacks, but also convinced that there must be some hope for tomorrow. Explain everything to me, published in Catalan, like the seven previous novels, in Edicions de 1984 –In her novels, translated on this occasion by Núria Busquet and Molist, Strout brings together the three great families of her sober and irremediably curious narrative about human beings: the Burgess brothers, the writer Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge, who is now ninety years old. Despite living in a community of retirees, she refuses to leave that world.

There is a remarkable concentration of retirees in her novels. And this happens from the beginning. Why?

— Maybe I'm going against the grain, but I've always been interested in old people. From a very young age, I grew up with a lot of contact with my grandparents and other elderly relatives. I'm interested in old age, but above all in growing old.

In the first chapter, Olive tells Lucy about a memory that haunts her: her mother had been very much in love with a man who came from a good family, and although their story did not prosper, they both ended up naming the daughters they later had with the same name, a curious way of perpetuating the love they felt for each other.

— It's a very sad story. How many long-term marriages live their whole lives dragging ghosts along? That of Olive's parents is one of them. And it ends badly: he, after trying in vain to please her, takes a rifle and commits suicide. Shortly afterwards she develops a brain tumor, perhaps due to the anguish of her husband's death, and ends up dying.

Would you say that it is during old age that stories or memories become more important to oneself?

— Stories are memories. When you are young you are too busy living and have little time to reflect on what is happening. As you get older you think about what you have been through and often shape it into a story.

Would you say that your characters have become more tolerant as they have gotten older?

— I hope so. That was my intention. For years I have had the theory that as we age we either become bitter or we grow. And this cannot be foreseen when we are young, or at least I cannot see it.

Since she was little, her mother, who was a teacher, passed on her curiosity to her.

— Yes. She noticed people of all kinds and took an interest in them. She told great stories, the mother. Even when she was very old she would continue to share anecdotes about people she had met. She died at the age of 95.

Did your mother read your books?

— That's a good question. He never told me what he thought about what I wrote. Maybe it had to do with where he came from.

Because?

— People in Maine are like that. Obviously, this is a generalization, but I've met a lot of people in Maine who are incapable of sharing anything intimate. They'll tell you about the weather, but they won't tell you anything about themselves.

This must have been difficult for you...

— A lot. I love listening to other people's stories, not just imagining them.

All the characters ofExplain everything to me They live in a small town in Maine called Crosby and often share their feelings.

— Yes, because many of them come from outside of Maine! [Laughs] It's a good thing that happens...

And at the same time a disgrace, because as he explains in the book, the prices of flats have risen so much that people in Maine have to leave.

— This is a problem that is happening in many places in the United States right now. I don't know how our children's generation will handle it, or the next generation.

This is not the only problem they will encounter.

— Unfortunately, no.

Lucy says: "It seems like the whole world has gone mad." The novel takes place just after the pandemic.

— There are still characters who wear masks for fear of getting infected, like Margaret, or who are paranoid about germs, like Pam.

How have we emerged from the pandemic? Are we aware of it, or have we forgotten it?

— I live between New York and a town in Maine, and in the cities the big change has been teleworking. No one goes to the office from Monday to Friday, and I hope that this doesn't change, no matter how much Donald Trump says otherwise.

The world of the novel predates Trump's new mandate.

— Yeah.

There is a phrase that perhaps reflects the present that they live right now: "I think this country could be heading towards a civil war."

— Since Trump was elected president, I have lived in fear. I thought we were a country that was evolving, and now everything will go down the drain. Policies of equality, of tolerance towards transgender people... all of this will be lost.

The country is divided.

— Half of Americans love Trump, and the other half are terrified of him.

How will Trump influence your next novel?

— I don't know yet. But Explain everything to me closes the cycle dedicated to Olive, the Burgess brothers and Lucy Barton. I need to start something that has nothing to do with it.

Will love continue to play a central role, as it has until now?

— Yes. You know what love is only when you feel it, but there are many kinds. If we take Bob Burgess as an example, when he brings the groceries to Mrs. Hasselbeck's house every week, he is doing an act of love. And he loves Margaret, with whom he has shared a long marriage. But at the same time, when he is with his friend Lucy, he feels something different than he feels for anyone else.

She feels that she is truly listened to and understood.

— There are many people who feel that no one is really listening to them. This causes a lot of suffering. One of the most universal wishes is for someone to sit next to us, listen to us attentively and be able to see and accept who we are.