“Strout has the incredible ability to take ordinary, even mundane situations and use them to make acute observations on the human condition. A mother's visit to her daughter in the hospital becomes the vehicle for an astute examination of daily needs, desires, yearnings, wishes, and dreams that become so much of the remembered experience. Using spare, precise, but beautiful language, she has produced another masterpiece in a growing list of impressive work.”
— Bill Cusumano (M), Square Books, Oxford, MS