The dark themes and incidents in Elizabeth Strout's Anything Is Possible

Here are some of the traumatic incidents in just the first 3 chapters/stories in Elizabeth Strout's recent novel (or linked short stories, if you prefer), Anything Is Possible: arson, extreme poverty, bullying, public masturbation, physical and sexual abuse, infidelity (witnessed by teenage daughter), infidelity (aided and tolerated by spouse), suicide (jumping from a hotel window), voyeurism (spying on a house guest), rape - am I leaving out anything? These are painful stories that portray life in a small, impoverished town in the Midwest as anything but pastoral, and they'd be unbearable save for Strout's clear and precise language and the glimmer of hope that some at least can escape the miseries of life in this circuit. In fact, the link connecting the stories is a character, not yet seen in the 1st 3 stories in the book, Lucy Barton, a young girl from an ostracized family in town, extremely shy in her youth, who is now living in New York City - almost unfathomable to those back in town - and in a successful career as a writer, in fact one who's just published a memoir (on sale in the local bookstore - yes, they have one). Be it noted that Strout - whom I think shares some autobiographical details w/ Lucy - has published a novel called Lucy Barton, so these 2 books are of a piece. Another notable feature that ameliorates the pain of this novel: Strout pays loving attention to the boring details of everyday life; e.g., in the first story in the book she spends a lot of time an 80-something man in town to buy a couple of presents for his wife - a scarf, and a book on gardening, and he has several dull and un-portentous meetups with a few townsfolk (hi, how are you, etc.) before the story explodes in an act of violence, confession, and painful guilt.