Plot, character, and the rules of fiction

I'm going to have to put aside Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys for a little while and in fact elliotsreading, after nearly three years of daily posts, may take a short hiatus - though I will try to post if possible - but just a few notes on Burgess Boys: More than in her previous novels, Strout seems intent on developing a taut plot and on taking on social issues, both of which are to her credit - however, I am hoping the plot involves some surprises and some transformation of characters. In great novels, characters change, grow, and evolve - and do so in credible ways and as a result of forces with which they are in collision - familial, social, psychological. Great novels generally have plots (or structures at least) that are inventive, but which obey a certain set of rules and conventions and honor these - that is to say, in a realistic or naturalistic novel, a character cannot suddenly transport into another time dimension (except in the most inventive of novels, which have their own weird rules, e.g. Master and Margarita, 100 Years of Solitude). In other words, what the characters do in naturalistic fiction may surprise us - but ultimately must convince us that the actions are within the bounds and capabilities of the character, and the world, that the novelist has posited. Strout seems devoted to the conventions of realism - but I worry that the novel may be too easy to foresee. I will give two predictions, having just finished part 1 (about 1/4 of the novel): younger brother Bob (who is not gay as I had thought perhaps he was, but does have troubled relationships w/ a # of women and regrets his solitude and his lack of children) will get involved with the Unitarian priest who comes to comfort his sister in Maine - she's too distinct a character to introduce and then drop (and perhaps will adopt a Somali child?). Second, older brother Jim, whom we now see will have to return to Maine to retrieve the car that Bob had abandoned there, will end up as the defense lawyer for Zach - putting him in direct conflict w/ the Somali community, and no doubt with his younger brother (maybe he'll represent a Somali?). That will be the problem that the novel must resolve: family v. justice. We'll see how good a prophet I am - and how good a novelist Strout is.