book review of olive kitteridge

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OLIVE KITTERIDGE

A novel in stories.

by Elizabeth Strout ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2008

A perfectly balanced portrait of the human condition, encompassing plenty of anger, cruelty and loss without ever losing...

The abrasive, vulnerable title character sometimes stands center stage, sometimes plays a supporting role in these 13 sharply observed dramas of small-town life from Strout ( Abide with Me , 2006, etc.).

Olive Kitteridge certainly makes a formidable contrast with her gentle, quietly cheerful husband Henry from the moment we meet them both in “Pharmacy,” which introduces us to several other denizens of Crosby, Maine. Though she was a math teacher before she and Henry retired, she’s not exactly patient with shy young people—or anyone else. Yet she brusquely comforts suicidal Kevin Coulson in “Incoming Tide” with the news that her father, like Kevin’s mother, killed himself. And she does her best to help anorexic Nina in “Starving,” though Olive knows that the troubled girl is not the only person in Crosby hungry for love. Children disappoint, spouses are unfaithful and almost everyone is lonely at least some of the time in Strout’s rueful tales. The Kitteridges’ son Christopher marries, moves to California and divorces, but he doesn’t come home to the house his parents built for him, causing deep resentments to fester around the borders of Olive’s carefully tended garden. Tensions simmer in all the families here; even the genuinely loving couple in “Winter Concert” has a painful betrayal in its past. References to Iraq and 9/11 provide a somber context, but the real dangers here are personal: aging, the loss of love, the imminence of death. Nonetheless, Strout’s sensitive insights and luminous prose affirm life’s pleasures, as elderly, widowed Olive thinks, “It baffled her, the world. She did not want to leave it yet.”

Pub Date: April 15, 2008

ISBN: 978-1-4000-6208-9

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2008

GENERAL FICTION

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TRUE COLORS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 9, 2009

Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...

Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga ( Firefly Lane , 2008, etc.).

At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.

Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008

GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

More by Kristin Hannah

by Kristin Hannah

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen ) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

More by J.D. Salinger

by J.D. Salinger

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Reviews of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

Olive Kitteridge

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• Mar 25, 2008
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Book Summary

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse. As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life – sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

Chapter 1 Pharmacy

For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy. Retired now, he still wakes early and remembers how mornings used to be his favorite, as though the world were his secret, tires rumbling softly beneath him and the light emerging through the early fog, the brief sight of the bay off to his right, then the pines, tall and slender, and almost always he rode with the window partly open because he loved the smell of the pines and the heavy salt air, and in the winter he loved the smell of the cold. The pharmacy was a small two-story building attached to another building that housed separately a hardware store and a small grocery. Each morning Henry parked in the back by the large metal bins, and then entered the ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• Do you like Olive Kitteridge as a person?
• Have you ever met anyone like Olive Kitteridge, and if so, what similarities do you see between that person and Olive?
• How would you say Olive changed as a person during the course of the book?
• Discuss the theme of suicide. Which characters are most affected (or fascinated) by the idea of killing themselves?
• What freedoms do the residents of Crosby, Maine, experience in contrast with those who flee the town for bigger “ponds” (California, New York)? Does anyone feel trapped in Crosby, and if so, who? What outlets for escape are available to them?
• Why does Henry tolerate Olive as much as he does, catering to her, agreeing with her, staying even-keeled when she rants and ...
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Book Reviews

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: Book Review

Title: Olive Kitteridge Author: Elizabeth Strout Series: Olive Kitteridge #1 Genre: Contemporary Fiction Audience: Adult Format: Paperback

My Synopsis:

Olive Kitteridge is the story of a very complex woman, the story of a marriage, the story of a small town, the story of desperation, hope, kindness, cruelty, love, and betrayal. In short, it’s the story of humanity.

Olive is obviously at the heart of this collection of stories. It’s very easy for fictional characters to be all good or all bad. I had moments where I hated Olive, cheered her on, admired her, pitied her, and even loathed her. But if you look deeply inside all of us, isn’t that the way we would really feel about everyone? We see Olive’s warts, but we see that she’s constantly learning, even as she ages. There’s none of that business about old dogs and new tricks here. She changes and learns when she’s ready to, and I think that’s how we all are.

The other characters in the stories were interesting as well. They weren’t only there to highlight an aspect of Olive’s character, although they did serve that purpose too. Sometimes they had their own messages to share. I don’t feel like I can say more without giving their short stories away.

I can see why this won a Pulitzer. It’s a very enjoyable read with huge messages and themes packed in. There is so much to think over and discuss here. I recommend it for those in search of one of those books that will stick with you for a while. I know I’ll be thinking about Olive for some time to come.

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If you liked Olive Kitteridge , you might also like my reviews of

• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, read by Anna Fields
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Buy Olive Kitteridge  from  Malaprop’s Bookstore  in Asheville, NC.

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I would highly recommend it as a book club read.

Sounds like a good bookclub read.

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Olive Kitteridge

By elizabeth strout.

Book review, full book summary and synopsis for Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, an empathetic story about an "unlikeable" older woman..

(This is a bit of an aside, but Olive is perfectly cast as Frances McDormand in the HBO series. One of my favorite ever award show jokes is from the 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards when John Mulaney describes Frances McDormand thusly: "Frances McDormand, you are no bullshit. You are great. I bet a fun way to commit suicide would be to cut in front of her in line, and then go, 'Hey, lady: Relax .'")

The book follows the Kitteridges over a course of decades, and in doing so presents a series of empathetic and honest stories about the people of Crosby and the large and small dramas, heartbreaks and joys in their lives.

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Full Plot Summary

Olive Kitteridge is told as a series of short stories involving (sometimes front-and-center, other times only in the periphery) Olive Kitteridge, a math teacher living in the fictional coastal town of Crosby, Maine. Her husband Henry is a pharmacist, and her son Christopher begins the book as a teenager in high school.

Olive is a difficult and temperamental woman whose father died by suicide. Henry, meanwhile, is a kind and affable man. Through the course of the book, Olive Kitteridge retires and Henry has a stroke and later passes away. Christopher, meanwhile, grows up to be a podiatrist and gets married twice (once to Suzanne, who leaves him, and another time to Ann, who has two children and later a third). The stories also include some about various members of the town such as the local piano player or a young woman whose fiancee gets cold feet on their wedding day).

The book explores a lot of junctures in the course of an everyday life, and thematically it focuses on the nuances of what gives people happiness or causes someone to be kind or unkind.

For more detail, see the full Chapter-by-Chapter Summary .

If this summary was useful to you, please consider supporting this site by leaving a tip ( $2 , $3 , or $5 ) or joining the Patreon !

Book Review

So, my review of Olive, Again will be coming up next week-ish, but I first wanted to do a re-read of the first book, Oliver Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

If you’re just trying to get caught up for the sequel, note that you don’t actually need to have read this first book (Olive Kitteridge) to enjoy the second one (Olive, Again). You can also check out my summary of Olive Kitteridge or watch the fantastic HBO mini-series adaptation of this book if you want to get caught up that way as well. However, I’d recommend just reading the book in this instance, even though it’s not strictly necessary. It’s only 230 pages, it’s not a difficult read and it won a Pulitzer, come on.

Olive Kitteridge is a book about unassuming people in an unassuming town. It consists of a series of stories told with a restrained, simple elegance, great empathy but also an unflinching honesty.

The first time I read this book was a long time ago, and to be frank, it didn’t leave a huge impression on me. But I was also fairly young then, with pretty limited life experience, and I don’t think I approached it with sufficient thoughtfulness. I wanted to re-read it partially to get caught up for the follow-up, but also because I was left wondering if I’d get more out of it with some age, maturity and a slightly different mindset.

I definitely ended up appreciating the book more a closer second read, especially when it comes to more literary aspects like symbolism and trying to understand what Strout was really trying to say in these stories. There’s a lot of subtext in Olive Kitteridge and a lot that’s left unsaid. It is a powerful book, but in much quieter ways than your average novel.

Olive Kitteridge is an intensely interior novel and it focuses on the inner thoughts in these characters heads, in terms of what drives them or brings them joy or grief. The relationship between Olive and her son Christopher though is perhaps the most compelling. The book explores Olive’s history and how it plays into Christopher’s upbringing and how that evolves as Christopher grows into an adult.

Note that if you’re looking for a female protagonist version of A Man Called Ove , then this is not it. It’s a very different type of book that tries to understand Olive’s unhappiness and the barriers that she’s constructed for herself. I think this book is less heartwarming than people expect it to be, but I think its realism and that psychology behind this book is much more interesting and instructive.

Read it or Skip it?

Olive Kitteridge is well worth a read. The HBO adaptation is quite good, but the book really is better. You could easily enjoy both. While Strout’s follow-up, Olive, Again , doesn’t really require you to first read Olive Kitteridge , this book is good enough that I would strongly recommend reading it first.

It is, however, a pretty nuanced and interior sort of book. If you’re looking for something highly entertaining or something that doesn’t require you to think at all, then this is probably the wrong choice. This is also not a upbeat, warm-hearted tale, despite is bright yellow cover.

I think this book is perfect for anyone who is feeling contemplative about the everyday aspects of life or someone looking for a book that is literary without being pretentious or inaccessible. It is a perfect quiet afternoon sort of novel, perfect with a cup of tea and your pet on your lap.

See Olive Kitteridge on Amazon .

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of Olive Kitteridge

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I loved both Olive and Olive Again. I didn’t remember about the HBO series until I read this so now I have to check that out. Thanks for the reminder :-)

glad to hear it and thanks for reading! :)

The Olive books are two of my favorite books!

I hadn’t read the book, but I did see the series and loved it. The book is on my TBR list. Thanks for your thoughts.

Thanks for reading, Rosi! Hope all is well with you and that you get a chance to read it! :)

Booklover Book Reviews

Olive Kitteridge Review: Underwhelmed by this Pulitzer winner

Olive Kitteridge , Elizabeth Strout’s ‘novel of stories’, left me underwhelmed and perplexed by its lack of cohesion. Read on as I seek to explain why in my full review.

Olive Kitteridge Book Synopsis

In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge.

At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer’s eyes, it’s in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama–desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost the will to live: Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty.

( Random House )

Genre:  Drama, Literature, Short Stories

Disclosure: If you click a link in this post we may earn a small commission to help offset our running costs.

BOOK REVIEW

Olive Kitteridge , Elizabeth Strout’s much-lauded novel has left me feeling underwhelmed.

It is understandable that her character Olive Kitteridge and her flaws, plain-speaking and stoicism has struck a chord with, or elicited an emotional response from, so many readers. I was not wholly immune. I certainly do not have to like a character to like a book.

Strout clearly has enviable skills in short story craft. Her sense of timing, choice of perspective, the deeper meaning she extracts from the smallest actions and observations is admirable. In several pieces the story’s depth creeps up on you, in much the same way life has crept up on its characters. Strout’s prose exhibits an uncommon clarity, stripping away the white noise, almost like a set of noise-cancelling speakers.

Novel of stories

For me though, Olive Kitteridge  does not succeed as a ‘novel of stories’. I was perplexed by the lack of cohesion between the pieces. That is, until I realised at least 6 of the 13 stories were published separately over the two decades preceding this novel’s 2008 publication.

The ‘novel of stories’ framework really appeals to me and I have had the pleasure of reading many fine examples of the form. From the well-known  David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas through to the lesser-known but highly recommended  What The Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang . I have also read powerful ‘themed short story collections’, Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals and Hollis Seamon’s Corporeality   being wonderful examples. But in form,  Olive Kitteridge falls somewhere between these two camps.

However, for me the most notable thing about this novel  was the subtle sense of liberation(?) engendered by the narrative’s underlying acquiescence to things not being right or wrong in the world, but simply the way they are. It is wise to pick our battles and we all handle things differently. But fatalism and passivity are not stances that sit well with me, and I found these aspects saddening. For this reason alone, perhaps I was simply the wrong reader for this book .

BOOK RATING:  The Story 2 / 5 ; The Writing 3 / 5  — Overall 2.5

More Olive Kitteridge reviews

“The pleasure in reading “Olive Kitteridge” comes from an intense identification with complicated, not always admirable, characters. And there are moments in which slipping into a character’s viewpoint seems to involve the revelation of an emotion more powerful and interesting than simple fellow feeling — a complex, sometimes dark, sometimes life-sustaining dependency on others.” — NYTimes

“ Olive Kitteridge is a masterpiece: The writing is so perfect you don’t even notice it; the story is so vivid it’s less like reading a story than experiencing it firsthand.” —  NPR

“A heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection.” — Publishers Weekly

“A perfectly balanced portrait of the human condition, encompassing plenty of anger, cruelty and loss without ever losing sight of the equally powerful presences of tenderness, shared pursuits and lifelong loyalty.” — Kirkus Reviews

Olive Kitteridge is available from:

Amazon Bookshop US Book Depository OR listen to the audiobook FREE with Audible’s Trial (check eligibility)

* A Pulitzer prize-winning novel I do recommend is Less by Andrew Sean Greer .

About the Author, Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout is the author of the New York Times bestseller Olive Kitteridge , for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize ; the national bestseller Abide with Me ; and Amy and Isabelle , winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in London. She lives in Maine and New York City. See Elizabeth Strout’s  official website .

A booklover with diverse reading interests, who has been reviewing books and sharing her views and opinions on this website and others since 2009.

Book Reviews for Mom

Mackenzie Clements

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout

Finished: June 21, 2024

Why I read this

Continuing the unexpectedly long path of reading most of the Pulitzer Prize winners, I’ve arrived at Olive Kitteridge. As with many of the books I’ve read recently, I knew almost nothing of the plot before starting the read. I prefer it this way honestly. It’s always nice to discover something new and for the first time. So unfortunately the reason I read this is simply that it won a prize once and I had the book on hand, but I’m happy again to continue to read from a diverse set of authors and categories. I really believe continuing to read many different books like this, I have improved, if only slightly, my ability to think from other perspectives.

What I learned

Returning again (for what feels like the 100th time, since I am also reading Cujo on audio at the same time) to small town Maine, Olive Kitteridge explores the deep emotions hidden in the daily slog of life between our few more explosive moments, or as Olive would say our “little bursts”. Written in short stories about a cast of characters, the reader is constantly reminded that even if we have the principal role in our own story, there is a whole world of supporting characters that have their own thoughts, feelings, emotions, needs and desires.

What struck me most of this diverse membership were the feelings and emotions of Olive herself. The perspective of the sharp, aged mother is not one that I have often emphasized with, and this was the perfect occasion to connect better with this group with whom I have little connection. So despite her crotchety personality I found myself moved by her thoughts and emotions. When seen from the outside perspective of the other characters, she often appeared intolerable, with frequent questions of how on Earth her husband puts up with her. But once her perspective is revealed in later chapters, the question is answered by how she views herself, and how her husband no doubt is able to see her. Like in How to Win Friends and Influence People she of course does not see herself as a bad, or misaligned person. She see’s herself as a demanding, but loving mother who wants nothing but the best for her husband and child. She see’s her severity as a method for instilling good values in her son and her countless students. Moreover, her system has clearly worked for some when you hear the stories of her ex-students. In this way it is saddening to see when despite her good intentions others cannot, or will not, accept her flaws and reject her, leaving her hurt and confused. It is a classic case of how seeing the inside of a person’s thoughts or feelings can make you almost always feel for them and take their side.

Beyond Olive I found the repeated theme of fidelity, and the reasons for why one might lapse into infidelity, to be a meaningful and deeper than usual look into what it means to love and to be loved. Many of the stories focused on those young and old who experienced doubt in their relationships in a wide range of conditions. Although never acceptable, you see the reasoning and interactions involved in each incident and at a minimum you can understand what led to these situations. It reminded me a bit of Talking With Strangers by Malcolm Gladewell and how he was able to tackle immesely emotional subjects from an analytical perspective where you could understand the problem wholistically without being lost in the disgust of the action. As always I simply enjoyed characters that acted the way I think real humans do, all of the flaws and challenges included.

I also enjoyed the insertion of an extremely traumatic story in the middle of the book, and then a transition back to more rather quotidien stories. It highlighted that life has ups and downs, and although there will be some enormous and life changing events in the flow of each person’s life, after each of these events the normal and daily will return. The world is remarkably resistant to major changes and the inertia of our lifes cannot be easily guided in another direction. It also represents the heartiness and adaptability of the human race, which I always find incredible. How we can adapt to almost any condition and remain unbroken. It’s true that trauma can dramatically affect people, often in cripplingly negative ways, but at the same time a remarkable number of people have withstood horrible things in their lives and remained strong in the face of such adversity. Having avoided major trauma for most of my life I asked myself how I would handle exposure to such extreme events, and I’m not sure anyone can answer that question before the experience. I’m sure this is a question psychologists will beat themselves up over for the next few hundred years and never find an acceptable method of predicting the outcome of misfortune.

What I didn’t like

I have never been one for short stories. I find too often that it takes me a few pages or even a few hours, to build a connection with a character. In my sci-fi favorites Ender’s Game, The Dark Tower, Dune , there are hundreds (if not thousands) of pages developing single human characters. So much so that I think one of the rare times in my adult life I’ve cried was during the 7th volume of The Dark Tower when a main character was killed. After all those pages together he felt like a real person, not just a character, and it was heartbreaking to lose him. With shortstories I’ve rarely, if ever, felt even a semblance of that connection. I’ve read plenty of King short stories, but honestly I can only name a couple of them now, and even then most feel a bit unremarkable. Even now thinking back to Olive Kitteridge a week later I strugle to recall each of the characters and their individual stories. Maybe it would not have won a Pulitzer written differently, but I believe I would have enjoyed it more if a few of the characters had been cut and the plot a bit more centralized.

Questions I asked

How can people bear to live in this world we have built around loving one another and being loved, without finding that spark for themselves? 

Why do so many people seem to end up trapped in loveless relationships? Why can’t they get themselves out of them?

Can intentions really be good enough? Can you accept people in your life with heavily negative qualities because you know they mean well by you?

My Favorite Quote

“For who could bear to think of himself this way, as a man deflated by the good fortune of others? No, such a thing is ludicrous.” Henry Kitteridge

Books I liked like this one

Gilead : Marilynne Robinson (for thoughts of life from the perspective of an older person)

Empire Falls : Richard Russo (for the depth found in a web of small town interactions)

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Books on the 7:47

Book review blog / author interviews / all things bookish, review: olive kitteridge by elizabeth strout.

• by Jen | Books on the 7:47
• Posted on January 27, 2018 December 30, 2017

 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Opening sentence: “For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy.”

Given that Olive Kitteridge is the title character, it’s not until the fourth chapter that we are actually given an account of things from her point of view. She appears in every chapter, either as a reference or minor character, but there are only a handful where she takes centre stage. Essentially written as 13 short stories (some of which have been published independently before appearing in this novel), this is an interesting narrative structure that sees us meet a wide range of people living in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine in the 1960s – 1970s, each with their own unique story. Olive is the continuous thread that binds these stories together.

A retired maths teacher, she lives with her loving husband, Henry, has a complicated relationship with her only child, Christopher and due to her job, knows a majority of the people in her town. She is an interesting, complex character, ‘She didn’t like to be alone. Even more, she didn’t like being with people.’  I enjoyed how she is not immediately likable, her set-in-her-ways, formidable personality (as her husband says, ‘she had a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away,’ ) is revealed to us through other people’s opinions of her, as well as in her dedicated chapters, it becomes clear that she has had a profound and sometimes pivotal impact on many people’s lives, whether she realises it or not.

Last summer I read My Name is Lucy Barton , my first Elizabeth Strout book and I just fell in love with her effortless writing style. She can convey so much in a handful of carefully chosen words, create characters you instantly care about and describe seemingly ordinary situations in such a lyrical way, ‘ A block of winter sun was splayed across the glass of the cosmetics shelf; a strip of wooden floor shone like honey.’  Character rather than plot focused novels seem to be her signature, as is definitely the case in Olive Kitteridge , although that’s not to say there isn’t an enticing plot line. There is even a dark thread that weaves its way through the narrative, every so often, little things are thrown in that add a pop of drama and make you question the true nature of people in general.

A random colloquialism I’ve never encountered before cropped up in this book – pocketbook vs handbag. For a while I thought Olive was taking little books around with her for some reason, until it finally clicked what Strout was talking about handbags! A quick Google confirmed it’s a UK / US language difference. Also, at one point, Olive has a little rant about the current (to her) president, ‘she couldn’t stand to look at the president’s face: His close-set eyes, the jut of his chin, the sight offended her viscerally. She had lived through a lot of things with this country, but she had never lived through the mes they were in now.’ After reading this, I actually had to check the   publication date of the book (2008) and remind myself of the period it’s set in, as she so accurately could be talking about modern day America, it was kind of spooky!

It’s easy to see why this won the 2009  Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Elizabeth Strout is truly a writer that I am in awe of. The way she artfully weaves the story threads of so many characters – and gives them all depth and meaning – while creating a title character that is not a woman you warm to immediately, but one you grow to care about so much. Overall, Olive Kitteridge is a wonderful snapshot of human life, emotions and the complex nature of seemingly ordinary people.

Rating: 4/5

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This was my introduction to Strout’s work and I have since read everything she has written. My name is Lucy Barton is definitely my favourite but Olive Kitterdge is more complex, I think and draws a fuller picture of the society out of which Olive emerges.

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Yes, agree! I’m definitely going to read more by her, her prose is just so lyrical.

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Book review | 'Olive Kitteridge' author Elizabeth Strout continues powerful storytelling

When Elizabeth Strout was in second grade, there was a boy, very poor, with no friends and dirt behind his ears.

“Our teacher said to him, ‘You are not so hard up that you can’t afford a bar of soap,’ and he turned deep red,” the author told me. “That child has stayed with me.”

The title character of her slim new novel, “My Name is Lucy Barton,” is an homage to that boy, “ to these very rural families who are outcasts because they are poor,” Strout said. “Every town has one, and probably a lot more, now.”

Strout’s latest narrator grew up in a remote and stark Illinois town, where she lived in a cramped and cold garage beside her great uncle’s house with her parents, brother and sister.

Lucy stayed warm by staying in school long after classes ended, doing homework and reading until the janitor nudged her out.“

Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there,” Lucy says, “ hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.”

Her studies allowed her to avoid the dysfunction at home, and it would propel her out, and away, never to return: A full scholarship to a Chicago university; marriage to a well-to-do classmate; two daughters, a writing career and a life in New York City.

But when Lucy ends up in the hospital with an infection, her husband flies her mother out — her first airplane trip — to keep her company.

They connect the usual way: gossip about the town and the people Lucy escaped long ago, but can’t shake from her being.

In the pauses and allusions, the brief laughs and quiet smiles shared by mother and daughter, Strout captures the ragged and silken threads of love. The push and pull between mothers and daughters and the things we learn to live with, or around.

It’s familiar ground for Strout, who made her mark with another mother-daughter novel, “Amy and Isabelle,” in 2000; and whose 2008 book, “Olive Kitteridge” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was made into an HBO miniseries starring Frances McDormand that won four Emmys.

Strout spoke by phone from her home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she was stretched on her couch and mourning David Bowie (“I just turned 60 the other day and I am like, ‘Oh, God!’ But he went out his way. So yea for him.”)

There’s a lot of Lucy Barton in her, Strout said. She grew up in rural Maine, went to college, got a law degree, married and lives in the big city as a writer.

“Honestly and truly, every character I wrote, they are all me in some way,” she said. “They have to be, because I am the only person I know. That’s the truth of it.”

As a child, Strout realized that she would never see the world, except through her own eyes.

“I was so frustrated with that,” she said. “And so as I began to read, I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I have had that thought.’ Books have always made me realize, ‘Oh, this is what it’s like to be another person.’“

I write because I have always wanted to be another person, but I make it up from what I have observed closely about other people.”

Strout has made her mark with those close observations, and for putting to the page what people don’t usually say in public.

She changes gears, somewhat, in “Lucy Barton,” in which the characters speak in veiled ways about clear dysfunction, like a quick slideshow: Lucy, locked inside a truck, screaming. Her adult brother, reading children’s books and sleeping in a neighbor’s barn.

Her character makes passing mention of “the Thing,” when her father — a World War II veteran scarred by an experience in Germany — becomes “very anxious and not in control of himself.”

Her mother, who doesn’t sleep much, says she can catnap, calling it something “you learn to do when you don’t feel safe.”

Readers can fill in the blanks, Strout said.

“I have always believed that everyone will bring their own story to whatever book they are reading,” she said. “But this book, particularly, I was aware that this was more porous than my others and that leaves more room for people to bring their own experience.

“I don’t want to press anybody’s face into things, either,” she said. “I just don’t want to be that kind of writer. People can do that and they do it beautifully. I am more interested in the essence of people.”

Strout had been writing for decades before her first novel was published. There was a time when she was working as a waitress and writing, “and I never got a nibble and I began to think to myself, ‘Oh my God, I am going to be 58 and I’m going to be a cocktail waitress, completely unpublished and that is going to be pathetic.’”

She went to law school and got a job as a legal-aid lawyer.

“I was doing what I wanted to do, but I was so bad at it,” she said. “I remember standing in the backyard, thinking, ‘I can be a bad lawyer or a 58-year-old waitress who tried writing and gave it everything, and that’s going to be fine.’

“If I am going to die, I will die knowing I tried with my whole heart.”

She succeeded, and as her fifth novel is launched — and “The Burgess Boys” is in development by none other than Robert Redford for HBO — her worries have subsided.

“I’ve got to tell you, it’s a little scary,” Strout said. “I’m sure I’m going to die tomorrow."

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You Must Read This

Who says you have to like a character.

Melissa Bank

Melissa Bank is the author of The Wonder Spot and The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing . She lives in Manhattan, where almost every night she orders an R-5 — that's Revolution Diet Number 5 — vegetables and tofu, from Empire Szechuan. She calls and says, "This is Melissa," and whoever answers says, "Same thing?" Marion Ettlinger hide caption

Whenever people say they didn't like the main character of a book, they mean they didn't like the book. The main character has to be a friend? I don't get that.

Here's a perfect example of a character you'd never be friends with, but whom you can't stop reading about: Her name is Olive Kitteridge, and she's the title character of Elizabeth Strout's book of short stories.

Picture this: Olive on the day of her son's wedding. What is she doing? She's looking through her new daughter-in-law's closet. And she doesn't stop there. She takes a magic marker and draws a black line down the arm of a beige sweater. She steals a bra and one loafer. She imagines her new daughter-in-law saying, "I must be losing my mind."

Olive is a character who's as bad as you'd be if you let yourself — and that's partly what drives the book: You can't wait to see what she's going to do next.

This is the story about people who live in a small town in Maine — people who might seem ordinary. But they're only as ordinary as we are.

It might sound ordinary for a woman to find out her husband's cheating on her, but not if you're the woman and it's your husband.

You feel that way in every story, I think, because you're privy not only to the characters' private lives but also to their most intimate thoughts — and to secrets they haven't told anyone.

There's at least one secret in every story — and one life-changing moment. Maybe that's why this book delivers what you hardly ever get in a literary novel: suspense.

Olive Kitteridge is a masterpiece: The writing is so perfect you don't even notice it; the story is so vivid it's less like reading a story than experiencing it firsthand.

Here's how real the characters are to me: While I was working on this essay, I caught myself withholding information about the characters to protect their privacy.

I was writing about Olive's husband and his secret longing for another woman when I thought, 'I can't say that.' Why? Because I imagined the whole town hearing about it on NPR.

If I sound insane about this book, it's because I am. I'm willing to do almost anything to get you to read it. Not because the book deserves to be read — though it does — but because if you're like me, Olive Kitteridge is the book you're always looking for:

It's a book that prevents you from going to sleep at a reasonable hour, that lifts you up and out of the subway, that gives you a double life to lead and changes the life you're in.

Olive Kitteridge is a book that will remind you of how much you love to read.

You Must Read This is edited and produced by Ellen Silva.

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Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

• Publication Date: September 30, 2008
• Genres: Fiction
• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
• ISBN-10: 0812971833
• ISBN-13: 9780812971835
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Readers Pick Their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

By The New York Times Books Staff

When the Book Review published a list of the 100 best books of the century , we knew we’d hear from readers who were incensed or gutted or driven wild by grief. How could So-and-So’s book not make the cut ?

One of the best things about working in books is just this: the passion of our constituency. No way would we deprive readers of the chance to vote for their own list and make their voices heard .

And so you have. There’s some overlap between your list and ours — we agreed on 39 books. As for the 61 new entries here, what stands out most is that they’re the books that captured cultural moments and sparked lively literary conversations. They’re also great. Enjoy!

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

• The Book Review’s List of 100
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The Reader Top 100

Demon copperhead.

Barbara Kingsolver

No. 61 on the Book Review’s list

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

No. 46 on the Book Review’s list

Min Jin Lee

No. 15 on the Book Review’s list

Tara Westover

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin

No. 76 on the Book Review’s list

My Brilliant Friend

Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein

No. 1 on the Book Review’s list

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro

No. 9 on the Book Review’s list

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel

No. 93 on the Book Review’s list

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara

The Overstory

Richard Powers

No. 24 on the Book Review’s list

The Underground Railroad

Colson Whitehead

No. 7 on the Book Review’s list

Hilary Mantel

No. 3 on the Book Review’s list

Cormac McCarthy

No. 13 on the Book Review’s list

Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders

No. 18 on the Book Review’s list

No. 26 on the Book Review’s list

Jeffrey Eugenides

No. 59 on the Book Review’s list

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

No. 27 on the Book Review’s list

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Michael Chabon

No. 16 on the Book Review’s list

Maggie O’Farrell

The Warmth of Other Suns

Isabel Wilkerson

No. 2 on the Book Review’s list

Ann Patchett

No. 98 on the Book Review’s list

Marilynne Robinson

No. 10 on the Book Review’s list

The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen

No. 5 on the Book Review’s list

Normal People

Sally Rooney

Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese

Say Nothing

Patrick Radden Keefe

No. 19 on the Book Review’s list

A Visit From the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan

No. 39 on the Book Review’s list

Madeline Miller

Cloud Cuckoo Land

The book thief.

Markus Zusak

Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell

No. 28 on the Book Review’s list

The Covenant of Water

The year of magical thinking.

Joan Didion

No. 12 on the Book Review’s list

The Nickel Boys

The great believers.

Rebecca Makkai

No. 64 on the Book Review’s list

Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout

No. 74 on the Book Review’s list

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

Life After Life

Kate Atkinson

No. 51 on the Book Review’s list

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

No. 11 on the Book Review’s list

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

No. 36 on the Book Review’s list

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

James McBride

There There

Tommy Orange

The Song of Achilles

Lessons in chemistry.

Bonnie Garmus

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong

Gillian Flynn

Percival Everett

The Nightingale

Kristin Hannah

Hernan Diaz

No. 50 on the Book Review’s list

Stephen King

Braiding Sweetgrass

Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan

No. 41 on the Book Review’s list

White Teeth

Zadie Smith

No. 31 on the Book Review’s list

Where the Crawdads Sing

Delia Owens

The Dutch House

North woods.

Daniel Mason

The Sympathizer

Viet Thanh Nguyen

No. 90 on the Book Review’s list

The Fifth Season

N.K. Jemisin

No. 44 on the Book Review’s list

Roberto Bolaño; translated by Natasha Wimmer

No. 6 on the Book Review’s list

Matthew Desmond

No. 21 on the Book Review’s list

Patti Smith

Susanna Clarke

The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson

Killers of the Flower Moon

David Grann

Know My Name

Chanel Miller

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Jesmyn Ward

No. 30 on the Book Review’s list

Crying in H Mart

Michelle Zauner

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

J.K. Rowling

Klara and the Sun

The lincoln highway.

Bryan Stevenson

Yuval Noah Harari

Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami; translated by Philip Gabriel

Haruki Murakami; translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel

Deacon King Kong

The immortal life of henrietta lacks.

Rebecca Skloot

Let the Great World Spin

Colum McCann

Tenth of December

No. 54 on the Book Review’s list

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi

Yann Martel

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo

The Plot Against America

Philip Roth

No. 65 on the Book Review’s list

The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls

In the Dream House

Carmen Maria Machado

Project Hail Mary

Drive your plow over the bones of the dead.

Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby Van Pelt

The Bee Sting

Paul Murray

A Thousand Splendid Suns

The vanishing half.

Brit Bennett

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Ottessa Moshfegh

Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart

Empire of Pain

A man called ove.

Fredrik Backman; translated by Henning Koch

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