Elizabeth Strout's novel is a crime thriller, but that is beside the point

Gabfest Reads is a monthly series from the hosts of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast. Recently, David Plotz spoke with Elizabeth Strout about her new novel Tell me everything. The book brings back familiar characters from Strout's earlier works, such as Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge, and although the plot revolves around a murder, there is much more to discover in this sleepy town.

This partial transcript has been edited and shortened for clarity.

David Plotz: The leaves on the trees are definitely a small plot point in Tell me everythingThere is a body and a murder and a beautiful small town in New England in the heart of Tell me everythingbut this is not like a Murder is her hobby kind of book. Did you imagine this book to be a crime story, or was it always about people and the murder just popped up?

Elizabeth Strout: That's really interesting. I think there were a couple of different things. One was that I wanted to pair Lucy with Olive because I thought that would be fun. And then the murder thing, I think I intended that to be a much bigger part of the book, but then I realized as I was writing that it was just going to be another part of the book. And at that point it calmed down a little bit and became part of the narrative.

The book contains things that are much more important than the murder in it. And it feels a little like a crime novel, and yet the reader realizes that… this is not going to be an Agatha Christie situation, it just isn't.

Right.

You tell the book from the perspective of Bob Burgess, the long-retired criminal defense attorney who lives in Maine with his wife, a minister, and who has developed a disturbingly close friendship with the novelist Lucy Barton, who also lives in Maine. What draws Bob and Lucy together?

Well, I think as the narrator tells you right at the beginning, they actually have pretty similar backgrounds. Lucy came from abject poverty and Bob was just poor as a child. But their backgrounds, their cultural backgrounds are similar in that they both come from many generations that came here years ago. And I find that interesting because I think that gives them a kind of natural connection at the beginning of their relationship. But they're also very good listeners. Lucy is a really good listener and Bob listens to everybody. And that's what they do for each other on these walks. They listen and tell each other all kinds of things and I think that makes them very close.

This book is a lot about people telling each other stories and listening to each other. Another key element, of course, is that Lucy spends a lot of time with Olive Kitteridge – who is now over 90 and still pretty pissed off. They have this kind of Arabian Nights where they tell each other stories. Where does that come from? Why did you want them to get to know each other in that way?

Somehow I realised gradually and then all of a sudden that they live in the same place. They actually live in the same town. Come on, let's just see what happens when they sit in a room together, because they are such completely different people. And when I wrote the first story where Olive calls her over because she thinks she might be interested in her story, I thought, “Hold on a minute. I think I'll do this for the whole book.” That's going to be a motif: Lucy and Olive will get together and tell each other stories. Because Olive is actually a very curious person. She likes to think about people and she knows that Lucy does too, and so that's their commonality. And they'll sit there and tell each other, as they say, unrecorded lives.