Elizabeth Strout

speaker

888 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Sep 2019 last heard 12 Jun

Elizabeth Strout’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.

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The Last Word with Matt Cooper · Novelist Elizabeth Strout On The Secrets Of Ordinary People · 12 Jun 2026 podcast

And I was thinking, I think it's in one of the Lucy Barton books where I think Lucy says, we're born with the nature and then the world takes its swings at us.

And I thought about that the other day.

I thought, oh, yeah, I think I wrote that coming from Lucy's mouth, but all of a sudden I realized I agree with that.

So, you know, we're born with nature, and then the world does its stuff to us.

And I don't know how much wiggle room we have in there.

I really don't.

But it's, you know, once I was writing about Artie Dam, and once I finished the book, I thought, how interesting.

I don't know how much free will we have.

No, I haven't.

I just play with it in my head sometimes.

I don't know.

But exactly.

And then something happens.

Many things happen.

And their lives don't turn out the way they thought they would.

I mean, that's practically the story of an ordinary life, right?

Right there.

People think they're going to live a certain way and then things happen and they have to deal with what is actually happening.

Well, you know, because it's something I think, I think it's been creeping through my work for many years.

And I finally thought, oh, I'm just going to take this head on.

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