The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Strout, Elizabeth. Tell Me Everything. Penguin Random House, 2024.

Elizabeth Strout's novel Tell Me Everything is set in present day Crosby, Maine and New York City. The novel is written from the third person point of view and employs the past and present tenses. Throughout the novel, the narrator moves between episodes of the characters' lives, frequently shifting between multiple settings and temporal eras. For the sake of clarity, the following guide relies upon the present tense and a linear mode of explanation.

Bob Burgess is 65 years old when Diana Beach calls him and asks him to represent her brother Matt Beach. Bob is a retired attorney and used to practice law in New York City. For the past 15 years he has been married to Margaret Estaver and living in Crosby, Maine. He agrees to take Matt's case when he hears his story. Matt lives in the neighboring town of Shirley Falls. He has been taking care of his elderly mother Gloria Beach who recently disappeared. When her body turns up in a nearby quarry, everyone blames Matt. Bob starts spending time with Matt and is convinced that he is innocent. For the majority of Bob's life, he believed he killed his father when he was a child and therefore relates to Matt and wants to help him.

Meanwhile, Bob tries to distract himself from the case by spending time with his good friend Lucy Barton. Lucy moved to Crosby from New York two years prior and she and Bob have been close ever since. They take a walk together every week. During their walks, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their troubles, and their joys. Bob always feels happy with Lucy no matter how stressed he is with Matt's case or frustrated he is with his wife.

Then one day, Bob learns that his brother Jim Burgess's wife Helen is dying. She passes away not long later and Bob travels to New York to be with Jim and his children. Bob is immediately struck by how much he misses Helen and how fraught Jim's relationship with his son Larry is. In the weeks following, his sorrow over Helen weighs on him and complicates his ability to invest in Matt.

Meanwhile, Bob puts Lucy in touch with a local woman named Olive Kitteridge. Olive wants to tell Lucy a story because she is a writer. The women start visiting with each other and exchanging various tales from their own lives and their family members' and friends' lives. Over time, they realize that the stories have thematic similarities.

One day, Bob takes a walk with Lucy and realizes he is in love with her. Over the following weeks he tries to dismiss his feelings but cannot stop thinking about Lucy.

Not long later, Matt's sister Diana Beach shows up in town and dies by suicide in Matt's house while he is out. She leaves a note in which she confesses to having killed Gloria. Matt is cleared and Bob stays with him for many days afterwards until Matt is stable. He encourages Matt to return to his painting practice, to pursue new relationships, and to start seeing a therapist.

Bob visits Jim in New York and tells him about his feelings for Lucy. Jim has had many affairs and urges Bob not to act on his feelings. He is still with Margaret and Lucy has been living with her ex-husband William. Bob takes Jim's advice, which upsets Lucy. She realizes that Bob will never articulate his feelings and gets angry. They do not see each other for several weeks. Then at Bob's birthday party, William reveals that he and Lucy are getting remarried. Bob understands that this is the best thing after a conversation with Olive about the matter later that night.

After Lucy returns from her honeymoon, she visits Olive and tells her the story of her and Bob's relationship. She tells Olive it is a sad tale, but it is also a story about love. Olive is moved and thinks about the story for a long time afterwards.