Elizabeth Strout

No, I'm just so happy that she's not me.

She...

My mother's father, he died when she was young, when I was young, and he came from a very harsh background.

And I remember her telling me that he was the eldest of a number of children and his father would beat the kids and that he would step in and take the beatings for the younger kids.

And he never spoke.

He didn't talk much at all as a grown man.

And he married my mother's mother because she was so social and it was helpful for him.

I think so.

I do think, I think that my mother, so she had an intuition and she was very interested in people and yet she was very mean and couldn't express it always, you know, or very often.

And I think that she probably wanted to be a writer and therefore I am, which worked out really well for me.

I know.

And that's another thing I think about my mother and the time she was born in, because it all, you know, when you're born and where you're born.

makes so much difference.

And I think about that with my mother a tremendous amount, that her time period in history was not that great, better than the time period before for women.

But it was still hard.

I think she would have been.

Yeah, I'm 70 years old.

Yes, it's fascinating.

I have to tell you, I really find it so interesting.

I can't explain it, but when I woke up the day I turned 70, I was unbelievably happy, and I was so surprised.