Tell Me Everything

As Lucy and Olive share the stories of everyday people like themselves, Lucy remarks on people who live unrecorded lives. This comment, made on their first visit, creates a need in Olive to share more of these stories and captures the fact that “[e]verywhere in the world people lived their lives unrecorded” (79). This motif traces Olive’s interest in and understanding of storytelling and contributes to The Importance of Perspective in Storytelling. As the novel continues, Olive becomes more adept.

This motif also eventually leads to more probing questions from Lucy and Olive. As they get comfortable with their task of telling the stories of unrecorded lives, Lucy connects it with the larger question of the purpose of life: “But, Olive, here is my question to you. Okay, so Addie’s life was one more unrecorded life, but what was the point of it? What was the point of her life, Olive?” (292). Here, Strout draws a connection between documentation and purpose as Lucy wonders if there is a connection between the two; Lucy poses whether it matters if Addie’s life was recorded and if it changes the answer regarding her life’s purpose. In a society increasingly preoccupied with recording and documenting personal lives, Strout raises the question but doesn’t answer it. Part of the point of Lucy and Olive’s storytelling sessions is their becoming increasingly comfortable with the ambiguity of these unanswerable questions.

Lucy raises the motif of the “sin-eater” several times in the novel. Strout’s reference to a sin-eater refers to a tradition believed to have origins in England and Wales, in which one person ritually consumes food at a graveside funeral to absorb the deceased’s sins so that they can move on. Lucy first refers to the sin-eater in reference to the story Olive tells her about Janice Tucker: “She was a sin eater. […] Some people on this earth eat other people’s sins, and that’s what Janice did her entire life” (86). With this reference, Lucy points out how Janice has borne the guilt, shame, repercussions, and damage that actually belong to the people in her life who perpetrated that damage.

Lucy also defines Bob as a sin-eater: “Starting with Jim, you have eaten his sins—unconsciously, of course—and—It’s just what you do, Bob. Everyone’s sins you take on” (90). However, in Bob’s case, her definition becomes broader. Bob bears the brunt of Jim’s guilt and shame over their father’s death, but he also assumes the burdens of other characters, like Pam and Matt. She understands that he sees their relationship as a reprieve from his sin-eating practices; in other words, she doesn’t add to his burdens but relieves them. However, at the end of the novel, Lucy realizes that Bob “was eating my sin of wanting him, oh that poor man!” (324). Throughout the novel, Bob remains true to who he is: a sin-eater.