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Olive Kitteridge

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 49,958 ratings · 9,221 reviews

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 liv...more

Paperback, 270 pages

Published September 30th 2008 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published March 25th 2008)

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Dec 09, 2012 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, made-me-cry, library-books, favorites

This is a collection of stories about a group of ordinary people living in a small town in Maine, their joys, sorrows, tragedies and grief, all centered around the main character, Olive Kitteridge. Normally, this is the kind of fiction I stay away from. I was afraid it would be an overwrought melodrama about provincial people living in a boring town. Yet, I was so absorbed by the lives of these people and had a difficult time putting the book down.

The characters were very well developed, the tow...more

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Jul 25, 2009 Lesley rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: bleechhh, womanish, quiet-in-a-small-town, fiction

first and foremost, i would like to congratulate myself for finishing this. for what i thought would take no more than two days to get through; it took about a week. A WEEK! i read the same paragraphs over and over, thinking that perhaps i was missing something. something elegant, ruminating, and unforgettable that the pulitzer board saw, which clearly i couldn't. but no, i wasn't missing anything (except for maybe hours of my life). ooh, i feel like old ladies will see this and hate me ... but...more

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Apr 06, 2010 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

4 and 1/2 stars

We all have known an Olive -- or at least, we think we know her. Strout shows us the parts we don't know, what's behind the prickliness and the 'attitude.' Through fiction, we now have a better understanding of such a person.

It's a rare writer who can embody a character so well. And the minor characters too -- they are all living, breathing people. More than one of these 'minor' characters are so well-drawn and intriguing that I wouldn't have minded knowing more about them.

Not all...more

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Nov 14, 2010 Tatiana rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer, contemporary, short-stories, why-the-hype

I've listened to 4 stories out of 13 and I think I've had enough. This book should come with a Depressed Senior Citizen Characters warning. I am sure my impression of this book is colored by the awful narrator/actor who read every character, regardless of the age and gender, as a 80-year old screeching and bleating elderly person (no offense to elderly), but the fact is the majority (if not all) of characters are old and/or miserable.

1/4th of the book is over, and I have encountered: an elderly...more

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Dec 31, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer-prize-winners, best-of-2008

When I saw this as the #3 book of 2008 in "Entertainment Weekly," the review intrigued me. So much so, I went to the library yesterday afternoon, took it out, and finished it this morning!

There are 13 stories interwoven together in this small town in Maine, with the one character, Olive Kitteridge, playing a part (sometimes small) in each one of the stories. Olive is a somewhat larger than life character, physically and emotionally, sometimes is crass and rude to people, but she definitely lives...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Sparrow rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: motherless-daughters, punching-tour, reviewed, audio

If I could use one word to describe this book, it would probably be “boring.” “Awkward” is a close runner-up. I think Elizabeth Strout must be the type of person who is less of the entertainment school of writing and more of the vitamins school of writing. But, I am left wondering what nutritional value I got out of this. Mostly, it just seemed like a bunch of people sitting around being petty, judging other people’s Issues, and thinking about cheating on each other. Like, whoa, deep.

The struct...more If I could use one word to describe this book, it would probably be “boring.” “Awkward” is a close runner-up. I think Elizabeth Strout must be the type of person who is less of the entertainment school of writing and more of the vitamins school of writing. But, I am left wondering what nutritional value I got out of this. Mostly, it just seemed like a bunch of people sitting around being petty, judging other people’s Issues, and thinking about cheating on each other. Like, whoa, deep.

The structure of the book is a bunch of different short stories that all somehow reference this one bitchy lady, Olive Kitteridge. It’s not a bad structure if there was something you wanted to know about the person, but in itself the structure is more of a gimmick than anything. Alone, it is neither good nor bad, but it’s easy to get trapped in a gimmick and refuse to edit because you’re married to it. I feel like that’s what happened here. A few of the better stories only incidentally referenced Olive Kitteridge, and I think they could have made better (by which I mean more entertaining and containing a plot) overall stories than Olive’s. Maybe I am just not interested in her. She is the mean math teacher, controlling mother, self-absorbed wife, busybody neighbor. None of the ways this played out were particularly appalling, but they were not endearing either. She started out meh and stayed meh throughout. I guess there is some reference in her character to the frigidness of New England towns, and I feel equally indifferent about that.

But, okay, I did like this recurrent theme about not being afraid of our own hunger. The book probably explores desire, and the stories are probably all studies about human desire and how it expresses itself in different ways. I don’t know, maybe all books are about that in some ways, and I'd rather read Wuthering Heights if I'm going for desire. This had alcoholism, anorexia, suicide, LOADS of adultery (contemplation), runaways, food allergies, robbery, murder (contemplation), and probably other topics like that. And then it ends (I guess spoiler alert, but it’s not really like there is a plot to this book, so I don’t think it really spoils anything) with a sort of huu-uuh in a story about some people in their seventies thinking about having sex with each other and how they were assholes to their kids.

So, I don’t know. I’m going to give this two stars because it’s so boring. Even the robbery is boring. I didn't hate it as much as it sounds like I did, but it would be a lie if I said I enjoyed it. There are all of these bloated similes, too, which are just painful. I can’t think of an example now, but something like, “She gazed into her cup of coffee and then noticed on the counter crumbs of a muffin LIKE GRAINS OF THE SANDS OF TIME-IME-IME-IME.” What. Ever. I’m only exaggerating a little. Everything was like the ocean waves ebbing and flowing, etc.

I listened to this on audio, and it was also meh. Now that I’m looking at the cover, it seems oddly apt. When I first looked at it, I was like, what the fuck is that? And it seemed kind of interesting and complex. Then I realized it was just a boring leaf. Then I gazed at my coffee and noticed on the table the leaves of the book pages like the leaves of the book of time-ime-ime-ime. This business about the trappings of time was probably not literally in the book BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN.

When she would come back to the hunger thing, though, I liked that. It seems like a good point – not to be afraid of our own hunger. I don’t really know what it means, and I question whether Strout does either, but it sounds good. (less)

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Mar 24, 2009 jo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: linda, wilhelmina

Recommended to jo by: jean

Shelves: short-stories, us-regional, blew-my-mind

don't know if it was me being meditative or moody or under the sobering influence of the recession, but i found this absolutely gorgeous book SO DAMN SAD. there are, let's see, at least two suicides but it might be three, three deaths but it might be more (one the death of a very young person), intolerably sad aging folks, a myriad broken relationships, and a ton of god-awful loneliness. how can a town as sweet and stably populated as crosby, maine, foster so much loneliness? aren't small towns...more don't know if it was me being meditative or moody or under the sobering influence of the recession, but i found this absolutely gorgeous book SO DAMN SAD. there are, let's see, at least two suicides but it might be three, three deaths but it might be more (one the death of a very young person), intolerably sad aging folks, a myriad broken relationships, and a ton of god-awful loneliness. how can a town as sweet and stably populated as crosby, maine, foster so much loneliness? aren't small towns supposed to be all about people knowing each other and supporting each other and all that? why don't the lonely people go hang out at the diner and have themselves a cup of coffee, chat the day away? i mean, really. i understand being alone in miami or new york or los angeles, but how can you be so lonely in crosby, maine?

i guess american writers and filmmakers have worked very hard at showing us that you can be plenty lonely in small town america, but somehow this is sinking in now for the first time, thanks to Olive Kitteridge. i think i'll stay in the big city, where at least you can be lonely with some privacy, out of the probing gaze of your gossiping neighbors.

but see, gossip is this two-sided thing. one the one hand, it can cut you down and shrink you (if you let it). on the other, it keeps people talking. when someone dies, everyone shows up at the funeral. when someone goes to the hospital, everyone asks after them. maybe the person who is asked would rather be left alone, but there's something to be said in favor of being asked (this is actually the point of one of these thirteen stories). a gossiping community is a community in which everyone is mourned. there is no indifference and almost never glee at people's death, however disliked they may have been in life. groups come together for the death of their own. this is something to be said for small towns.

and after all, no one is immune to loneliness. it's the human condition. which is precisely why this book is so sad: one would rather not be reminded.

in one lovely scene (there are countless lovely scenes in this book) olive kitterdidge finds out that an elderly man, an out-of-towner she stopped to talk to, just lost his wife of a lifetime. "then you are in hell," she says, matter-of-factly. "then i am in hell," he replies.

olive kitteridge, the nominal protagonist of this "novel in stories," is a masterpiece of writerly wisdom. she is wrong and intolerable in all sorts of ways: she is rude, judgmental, selfish, a bad mother, and a bad wife. she is ungainly and has bad taste in clothing. she is one of those people who, by rights, should not be much liked, and in fact she isn't. but to us she is us. if we were her, we'd find a way to come to terms with ourselves and be proud of at least something. so we come to terms with olive kitteridge. we forgive her. we forgive ourselves. we return over and over to the things she/we did well, that one time when she/we saved a person's life without much awareness of what we were doing; that other time when this kid who didn't talk to anyone talked to her/us.

it's amazing how a novel that does not focus entirely on one character (in some of the stories she is just named once or twice) should manage to make this character, nonetheless, so real and compelling. the compulsion is to identify with her.

but maybe it was me, bummed and worried about the recession and not too pleased with myself. i identified. identification is the path to compassion. this book helped me be see others, maybe myself too, with a little more compassion.(less)

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Apr 30, 2008 Rilla rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Elizabeth Strout has come back strongly after the disappointing Abide with Me to fashion a novel of small town life from interlinked short stories. Put yourself in coastal Maine--smell the pine needles and the salty air. The sense of place and strong characters reminded me of the best of Lee Smith's portraits of life in Appalachia. Olive Kitteridge figures in major and minor ways in most if not all of the stories, but she is far from the only "main" character. A former 7th grade math teacher (a...more

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Apr 23, 2008 marg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Eh.
Strout is such a good writer that when I heard she had a new one out I went to buy it without even knowing the title, let alone the plot. And while she is still a wonderful writer, she seems to have reduced herself (prematurely, I would hope) to the pre retirment plan of Maeve Binchy; the incredibly unpleasant world of the multiple narrative novel.
Her characters are sketched very well and her use of language pulls you in, but I really hate these snippets that aren't short stories, aren't nove...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Noeleen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-favourites

Olive Kitteridge, in essence, is a collection of thirteen short stories (although substantial in length) revolving around the lives, experiences and thoughts of the inhabitants of a small town in Maine. Olive herself is central to all tales within, whether directly or indirectly and whether you decide to like or dislike her character....she is indeed a formidable and essential ingredient to the stories.

I adored this book from the very first page. It is so well written, structured and immensely t...more

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Oct 03, 2011 Mikki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

In Winter Concert, one of the thirteen linking short stories forming the novel Olive Kitteridge, Jane Houlton peers through her car window at the many passing houses strewn with holiday lights and muses to her husband, "All these lives. All the stories we never know."

And in most novels, this is the case as we, the reader, are usually only privy to the thoughts and actions of the main characters while those in supporting roles do just that…support. We never really know them or even consider their...more

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Jun 10, 2011 ·Karen· rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: f2f-book-group-reads, favourites, usa

WOW!
How appropriate that Olive should be large: she is larger than life, human but more so. She's angrier, more unrepentant, and far less tolerant, of herself as much as of others, but at the same time she's also more feeling, more compassionate, more sensitive than the average member of the human race. She's raw, as if an insulating layer had been stripped away, leaving her to feel and see more than most. The magical thing is that you feel and see too, you develop a kind of preternatural sensit...more

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May 05, 2010 Barbara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: DEBBY,KELLY,GAIL

Elizabeth Strout has penned a beautiful book, which has left me deeply pensive and tearful. I am not generally attracted to the short story, but this is not truly of that genre. It is a series of vignettes, many of which have Olive Kitteridge as the main character. Each story is about the inhabitants of Crosby, Maine, a small seaside village, all with complicated tales of their own. Olive is ever present, even fleetingly,to tie the people to her in some manner.

When I first started reading, my th...more

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Jun 21, 2009 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nenette, Soni and Jillian

Recommended to K.D. by: Pulitzer

Shelves: pulitzer

This Pulitzer-winning book of 2008 is simply brilliant. The book is composed of 13 short stories of people who live in Crosby, Maine where the lead protagonist, Olive Kitteridge also lives. The stories are all about simple people but the way Elizabeth Strout told them are just engaging as if you were there watching these people from afar. The way Strout described the sceneries was very effective in a way that if Crosby was just an hour from here in Manila, I would just hop in the next bus so I’l...more This Pulitzer-winning book of 2008 is simply brilliant. The book is composed of 13 short stories of people who live in Crosby, Maine where the lead protagonist, Olive Kitteridge also lives. The stories are all about simple people but the way Elizabeth Strout told them are just engaging as if you were there watching these people from afar. The way Strout described the sceneries was very effective in a way that if Crosby was just an hour from here in Manila, I would just hop in the next bus so I’ll be there to see those places for myself.

The individual lives of those people who directly (Henry, the husband or Christopher, the son) or indirectly (like Angie in The Piano Player) interacted with Olive were quite ordinary (just like you and me) but presented by Strout in very human way. Too human that you could get scared when you see yourself in them – what they do, say or think. This, for me, makes this book so brilliant that I finished reading this in just a weekend (Saturday and Sunday – what a day to spend Father’s Day). There were no extraordinary, global or tragic events that happened in those stories like 9/11 or Columbine massacre (although there were some references on them in some dialogues) that would serve as a good background for seething drama but the simplicity yet effectiveness of the storytelling in episodic approach was brilliantly remarkable.

Because of its simplicity, it is very easy to relate to one or more of the characters. I know of mothers who are blinded by their tremendous love for their children. Olive Kitteridge loved his son so much and she did not know that her son finds that love too restricting so he decided to live far away from her. The book makes us realize that loving is not enough if we do not make the efforts to show it by considering the feelings of the person we love (her son Christopher) and the people who that person loves (his family). The other sub-plot that I really like was the one involving Henry (Olive’s devoted husband) who got another love – Daisy, up to the extent that he was already entertaining the thought of leaving Olive or being kicked out by her anytime soon. Henry was “humanized” (but referred to in the story as “a doll”) by falling in love again but choosing to stay with his family until his death. This makes us realized that even if we are already married, there is nothing wrong with falling in love as long as we do not cross the boundaries. Henry will always be one of the fiction characters (along with Olive and Angie) that I will remember in this novel.

However, my favorite part is The Piano Player and the character of Angie. The way Strout wrote this story was very engaging that at some point while reading, I hummed the Christmas tune alongside the character while she was playing those tunes in the piano. Like I was singing while she is playing the piano and talking to her past love who continued to hurt her. Angie was a piano player since her young age and she stayed in that same bar because her mother would not want her to go. She stayed single because she loved a married man so much that he could not leave her too. Now she was in her 50s, and she was still playing the piano in that very same bar. It is so simple yet so sad and makes us all want to re-examine our lives.

This is a very long review but I just could not help it. The novel is just too brilliant and there are just not enough words to describe how I felt while reading this book. Thanks, Ms. Strout for bringing Oliver Kitteridge in this fascinating world of literature! You rightfully deserve your Pulitzer award!
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Dec 20, 2007 Elaine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, december

Olive Kitteridge is subtitled a "novel in stories". Reading this book is like looking through a family photo album. Each short story is a snapshot portraying life in small town Maine. Strout expertly constructs each snapshot for us with her beautiful prose, adding layer upon layer, and often adding a slight twist at the end of the story which completely changes the picture we thought we were seeing into something we weren’t quite expecting at all.
Olive is of course our title character but she is...more

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Feb 23, 2012 Shelly rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: NO ONE!

Shelves: fiction-novel, give-away-throw-away

Horrible and probably not worth even the one star. While it's true Strout writes with depth, precision, and intensity it isn't to uplift or edify the reader. It's more like exploratory surgery to find the rottenest part of our souls and dig it out for examination. We all know humans have ugly pieces inside but why examine it in such detail with no probable solutions offered? I'd rather look for and latch onto the GOOD in each of us. I'd much rather be seeking after anything "virtous, lovely, or...more

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May 06, 2010 Jeanette rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-fiction, america, domestic-and-relationship-fiction, short-stories, pyoo-litzers

"Who does not have their basket of trips?"
Who indeed. I think that's the line that will stay with me long after I've forgotten the rest of the book.
I got a big kick out of the parrot trained to say "Praise Jesus" whenever anyone says a swear word. I wonder if you could really train a bird like that.
I LOVE it that we have a Pulitzer Prize book that slams Bush. LOVE IT! She doesn't mention his name, but the identity is unmistakable:
"That idiot ex-cocaine addict was never a cowboy...He's a spoi...more

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Jan 25, 2010 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

While I didn't always like Olive, I did enjoy this novel. Strout's writing is terrific; she fleshes out each of the characters with all their flaws, and through Olive's intervention with the characters, we gain insight into Olive's psyche. I detested her malicious cruelty in sabotaging Christopher's wife's belongings, yet I appreciated Olive's kindness to the anorexic girl and her love for her husband. At the same time I felt compassion for Olive's because of her loneliness and empty-nest syndro...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Quiltgranny rated it 5 of 5 stars

Even though, I usually don't care for short stories, this book of "not quite short stories" is so well written and tightly connected on to the other, I'm not sure that it WAS a collection of stories. The main character, Olive, is not one that you want to get to know. As the stories continue, and Olive is woven through them all, either in character or thought, you begin to see many traits of yourself or others in your family or your friends. Elizabeth Strout's writing skills make this a poignant...more

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Jan 18, 2009 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book, set in coastal Maine. It is really a creative novel, composed of 13 short stories that share the common protagonist, Olive Kitteridge.
Olivve is all of these: retired middle school teacher, sourpuss of a human, opinionated nasty, wounded human, wounding human, know-it-all, and in the end a genuine person.
The dialogue is genuine, terse, and minimized. There are some stunning portrayals here. The first and the last chapters are the best. I have not been moved by a book in quite...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: May

Shelves: fiction

The characters are so friggin' human ("deeply human" is more blurb-like). Saw this on Nancy Pearl's Best of 2008 list, and figured it must have good characterization (it does). I like the concept of getting to know a character--and a place too--through other characters that touch her life (husband, son, former student, local lounge singer, among others).

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Aug 15, 2010 Seth Hahne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub

I'll begin with my finale, so those who don't want to take the time to read several paragraphs will get the gist of it upfront: Elizabeth Strout strikes me as being an Alice Munro cover band. And with that, my review.

Really, my problem in reviewing Strout's collection of short stories is that I didn't hate it or love it. I didn't even like it or dislike it. I'm not in any sense ambivalent toward it. Save for the fact that I'm baffled by its Pulitzer status (and the other fact that I wasted count...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Laysee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I stumbled on Olive Kitteridge when I was checking out what friends of friends were reading. That’s the magic of Goodreads – it opens up a treasure trove where literary jewels abound. Olive Kitteridge is an arresting novel cast in the form of thirteen stories. It won the 2009 Putlizer Prize.

Set in Crosby, Maine, the stories were held together by varying threads of relation to Olive Kitteridge, the central character who loomed larger than life. In Olive, Elizabeth Strout created an unpleasant an...more I stumbled on Olive Kitteridge when I was checking out what friends of friends were reading. That’s the magic of Goodreads – it opens up a treasure trove where literary jewels abound. Olive Kitteridge is an arresting novel cast in the form of thirteen stories. It won the 2009 Putlizer Prize.

Set in Crosby, Maine, the stories were held together by varying threads of relation to Olive Kitteridge, the central character who loomed larger than life. In Olive, Elizabeth Strout created an unpleasant and unlikable character. However, as each story was being told, we began to see redeeming features that slowly stripped us of initial revulsion. Olive is a flawed character. But it will be hard for any of us not to recognize vulnerabilities, impulses and toxic traits that the best amongst us know to be second nature.

We first see Olive from the perspective of her longsuffering husband, Henry, who described her as both depressive and explosive. Olive thought of herself as a beast Henry married and loved. Her 7th grade Math students were all scared of her, yet a few liked and respected her, and recalled her powerful and weird counsel. Her own son, Christopher, grew up fearful and incommunicative, incapacitated by the “extreme capriciousness of her moods”. Neighbors echoed Henry's observation that "Olive had a way about her that was absolutely without apology”.

At least three times, Strout revealed Olive’s habit of taking pleasure in another’s misfortune (Schandenfreude). However, when confronted of this mean streak by a former colleague, Olive was honest enough to admit "she had been wrong to visit Louise Larkin, hoping to feel better by knowing the woman suffered." On another occasion, Olive had attended the funeral of a former student "hoping that in the presence of someone else's sorrow, a tiny crack of light would somehow come through her own dark casement."

As the stories unfolded, we became aware that Olive never quite recovered from the suicide of her father. Although she loved both her husband and son deeply, she could not express her love for them. It soon became clear that despite appearing brusque, unsentimental, and straight-talking, she could be caring and she definitely wanted to be loved and to reconnect with her estranged son.

Strout utilized the free indirect style to good effect. The stories were told in the third person but with the voice of one of the characters. I thought it was a clever literacy device that allowed the reader access to the character’s uncensored cognition. Olive's unbidden and tactless but unuttered responses were contrasted with the more civil remarks she made. They offered a glimpse into the gentler self beneath her boisterous, bumbling, bullying ways. They showed her capacity for restraint.

The thirteen stories also depicted parents struggling with rough and wrong turns in their grown-up children's lives and adults who made accommodations as spouses grew old and sickly and children moved on. There was sadness and resignation. But there was also celebration of life’s happy moments. As one of the characters put it, "One of those things about getting older was knowing that so many moments weren't just moments, they were gifts."

For me, a charming part of the novel is the religious parrot (belonging to Christopher's tenant) that said, "Praise God" or "God is King" whenever it heard anyone swear. Funny and delightful!

I enjoyed Olive Kitteridge very much. Her presence was imposing and refused to go away after the last page was turned. Now I know what one of her students experienced in her company - "He felt her big presence, and imagined - fleetingly - that an elephant sat next to him".
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Jun 29, 2009 Will Byrnes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Olive Kitteredge is a collection of stories that constitute a novel. They are not as closely woven together as the multigenerational tales in works by Louise Erdrich, another writer who likes to collect small parts into a larger whole, but Strout has, in telling stories of many characters, put together a compelling portrait of a small town. I was reminded of Spoon River, as we learn some of the secrets each of the main characters protect. Lake Wobegon came to mind, as well, but this is much less...more Olive Kitteredge is a collection of stories that constitute a novel. They are not as closely woven together as the multigenerational tales in works by Louise Erdrich, another writer who likes to collect small parts into a larger whole, but Strout has, in telling stories of many characters, put together a compelling portrait of a small town. I was reminded of Spoon River, as we learn some of the secrets each of the main characters protect. Lake Wobegon came to mind, as well, but this is much less folksy. The book most resembles Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson’s joined tales of alienation in small-town America. Olive Kitteredge is the organizational core connecting the novel's thirteen stories. She appears in each one, sometimes as a primary character, sometimes as a secondary and in others by one of the characters referring to her.

Loneliness is the predominant theme in the town of Crosby, Maine, loneliness or the fear of it. Most of the stories touch on relationships sagging, empty or gone, getting through emotional hard times and wondering if it is all worth the effort. There is a chilly New England sensibility here, characters unable to move past their Yankee reticence. Communication is guarded, often absent, but always made manifest in actions, if not words. Some succumb to their worst impulses. Others find their way through to some sort of reconciliation with life’s travails. Yet hope pops up frequently enough, like crocuses in March.

Olive journeys through her trials, her marriage, her relationship with her son, potential marital digressions. She seems clueless as to her affect on others, and can be glaringly harsh, while also displaying a capacity for kindness and understanding.

The writing is brilliant, taut, dense, a torte, and thus, a joy to be savored. A short-story writer’s talent for telling large amounts in small spaces, repeated a very lucky thirteen times.

I felt the tales had maybe a bit too much personal resonance. I recognized emotions, if not always specific situations, (and yes, some specific situations too) that I have experienced, and saw, through the eyes of this third-party, experiences that were likely to have been a part of the history of people in my life. Is it a good thing that a writer can make you squirm through such recognition?

Olive grows as a character, gaining some self-awareness, softening some hard edges, finding some light in a dark place, as others succeed or fail around her. This novel, though, is a full-fledged beacon. Wear shades, and enjoy.
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May 18, 2011 Tamsen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club, pulitzer

I think Elizabeth Strout is a fantastic writer - and I'm sure I'd love her novels. In fact, I have Abide by Me sitting on my beside table now, and I look forward to reading it. But, this book pissed me off. I actually liked Olive Kitteridge herself (it seems, from reviews on GR, that most people didn't like this book because of Olive). She was a great character - and a character that we got a lot of story on. Strout followed through with Olive. I got irritated with this book because of Strout's...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In quiet sleepy town, typical for Main
Old ways of Yankees life, as use to be, without change remain
Apart from melting pot and shock of sexual revolutions
Apart from Jews and lesbians and gays and other modern and progressive social institutions

1. Memorable 3
2. Social Relevance 4
3. Informative 4
4. Originality 5
5. Thought Provoking 5
6. Expressiveness 3
7. Entertaining 3
8. Visualization 1
9. Sparks Emotion 2
10. Life Changing (Pivotal, crucial, determining, defining, momentous, fateful, consequential,...more

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Dec 14, 2010 Paola rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa, imprescindibili

Abbacinata da questa scrittura. Brilla come un diamante da 100 carati. Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates e ora Elisabeth Strout, la triade delle migliori scrittrici che ho letto sin'ora nella mia oramai lunga carriera di lettrice.
La capacità di descriverti la realtà dell'animo umano come ce l'hanno queste tre, semplice, diretta, profonda, é cosa rara. Da gustare e assaporare, sono quelle letture che vorresti durassero una vita.
Fine lettura:
Olive K. é una donna, una moglie, una madre, poteva esser...more

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Nov 25, 2009 Daniel Solera rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, pulitzer-prize

Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is not so much a novel in the classic sense as it is a series of small town vignettes. Set in the northeastern United States, the book tells the stories of several interconnected families, focusing specifically in each one on the titular character, a hardened, stubborn woman whose outlook on life often clashes with those close to her.

Olive Kitteridge is not for the weak of heart. Each chapter focuses on one or two characters and a profoundly sad e...more Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is not so much a novel in the classic sense as it is a series of small town vignettes. Set in the northeastern United States, the book tells the stories of several interconnected families, focusing specifically in each one on the titular character, a hardened, stubborn woman whose outlook on life often clashes with those close to her.

Olive Kitteridge is not for the weak of heart. Each chapter focuses on one or two characters and a profoundly sad event that changes their lives, for better or worse. These events range from the death of a spouse, to the revelation of past infidelity, to the start of an affair, and other similar woeful or morally questionable acts. Olive herself is the central focus in several chapters, making cameos or anecdotal appearances in the rest. She doesn’t necessarily serve as a focal point around which the rest of the cast of characters’ events revolve, but at some point, every character has something to say about her.

Strout allows each chapter to unfold like an anecdote, written in a beautifully simple and elegant style. Events blend into each other seamlessly, as if characters were giving a narration for a film. Often, the narrator plays with time in remarkably subtle ways that make chapters read like they are scattered memories, whose sense and meaning are only now being discovered. This detached narrative allows for characters and readers alike to effectively meditate on the passage of time and the reconciliation of the old with the new.

It’s strange to me how closely I can relate to these stories. The majority of the players are in their 70’s or older, and yet the themes and conflicts present resonate on a broad, universal level. Characters wrestle with the unexpected advent of change, the sudden breakdown of emotional connection, the dissolution of the conventional family, and the erosion of traditional values among others.

Although I enjoyed reading about Olive Kitteridge in Stout’s eponymous novel, it was not a fun read, namely because reading about geriatric melancholy isn’t very uplifting. That said, the novel is a great example of how a simple style and captivating characters can tell rich, provocative tales.(less)

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Nov 22, 2009 Christine E. rated it 3 of 5 stars

I admired the writing (beautiful sentences, etc), and I think Olive Kitteridge herself is an interesting character. But I didn't quite feel like I knew her at the end, or that her character arc was sufficiently satisfying. I didn't like her, but that's not the problem. Several books I've absolutely loved center around characters I'd never want to hang out with! Also, I found it more difficult to keep track of all the characters than I'd have thought from such a slim book.

Maybe I just wasn't in...more

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Dec 08, 2009 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that literally changed the way I think and feel and respond to others. Elizabeth Strout brings much wisdom and insight to common themes like family dynamics, love, marriage, aging, death, grief, loneliness and betrayal without ever coming off as sentimental or seeming to arrive at an obvious conclusion. The messages of Olive Kitteridge are honest and real: that we need to love and be loved, that we need compassion and understanding both for and from the people in our l...more

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About Elizabeth Strout

ELIZABETH STROUT is the author of several novels, including: Abide with Me, a national bestseller and BookSense pick, and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in England. In 2009 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her book Olive Kitteri...more

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2008 Short Stories: Olive Kitteridge, N., Harry Potter Prequel, Sammarynda Deep, Exhalation, Shoggoths in Bloom, 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss

Ploughshares at Emerson College Vol. 36, No. 1, Spr. 2010

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Quotes from Olive Kitteridge

“You couldn't make yourself stop feeling a certain way, no matter what the other person did. You had to just wait. Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn't go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.” — 47 people liked it

“What young people didn't know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly . . . No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn't chose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not know what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered. . . . But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union--what pieces life took out of you.” — 29 people liked it

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