A short, enjoyable novel that explains how we are all lonely

If you read to divert yourself from the pains of life then you should stay away from the novels of Elizabeth Strout. But if you read to understand people better then Strout’s novels are for you, although her vision is bleak and getting bleaker. She must, like many Americans, have been affected by the horrors of the Trump presidency. In fact, although Trump is never mentioned by name, his presidency provides a background to her story of Artie, a history teacher in a small town on the coast of Massachusetts. And at the end of the novel the horrors of the presidency, including remarkably because they are recent the killings in Minneapolis, break through. I’ve read most of Strout’s novels, and they are short and easily read—but interspersed with acute observations. Her characters are everyday Americans, similar to everyday Brits and French and even Tanzanians. All her characters have a wound, as we all do. They do the kinds of things that we do, and the novels revolve around their…