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 countless minutes actually reading the thing), I'd say that I couldn't be bothered to care about Olive Kitteridge one way or another.

So I'm having a hard time mustering emotion enough to make you care about the book one way or other. Instead, I'll just talk about some things I know.

I know that Olive Kitteridge is not well-written. It's not awful stuff and is mostly competent, but it's certainly not good. Strout falls into familiar patterns of withholding information in enough of her stories that one comes to expect it. The kind of thing where she'll open with "After Event X, nothing was ever the same again" and then keep the reader in the dark over what the event actually was, only revealing the nature of the event pages past the point at which anyone could continue to care. She deposits point-blank iterations of Chekov's gun in stories—in one case, it's actually a gun too—telegraphing story intention with painful clarity. She does that thing that's common in comic books where a character in the midst of some unbelievably implausible circumstance remarks (with a figurative nudge-and-wink) that the circumstance is unbelievably implausible and were it not really happening, people would be certain it was the product of bad fiction. (Only she's not writing a comic book. And it's cliched and unfunny even in comics.) And she reintroduces Olive and her circumstance with tedious frequency. I realize that several of these stories were written years ago, but some editing for flow would have been awesome.

On the other hand, I know that Olive Kitteridge develops its characters generally pretty well. Especially its secondary characters, the ones who inhabit the book for only the space of a chapter or less. Those are the ones to whom Strout breathes life. Suicidal Kevin, jilted Julie, infidelitous Harmon. These are the people I wished the book would have continued with. Strout builds them into characters of interest and one wonders how they might recover from their stories.

I also know that if the state of Maine has the means and opportunity, they should ban Strout from entry or residency. Strout paints a picture of Maine that makes it perhaps the least likely target for any of my future vacationing plans. And I certainly wouldn't ever choose to live there if the author's portrait is in anyway accurate. Essentially, if Olive Kitteridge is to be believed, the state is built out of a) crazy and b) infidelity. I think perhaps it was only the final chapter that was free of the stuff. It got to the point where I'd begin a new chapter and sigh audibly a couple pages in and then explain to my wife that I was reading another chapter about another person whose quietly (or even not so quietly) insane.

I know that I did appreciate Strout's empathy for the aged. She brings to mind several of the difficulties and problematic philosophies of life that those of advanced age may surely feel if they are a) crazy or b) miserable. Reading Olive Kitteridge brought me forcefully to the conclusion that should I grow old, I honestly will beg with my mind to be forged of neither of these two (apparently common in Maine) characteristics. This is also a book that will be popular Christmas gifts from elderly parents to their grown-and-moved children, because nothing says Christmas Spirit like 270 pages of paperback guilt trip.

I also know that had this book not been assigned reading, I would have put it down after maybe the fourth chapter and probably never gotten around to finishing it. It wasn't so much that it was bad as it was just plain not that compelling a read. I never cared for the story of the title character and knowing that the side characters wouldn't be returning left me nowhere to hang my hat. And there isn't really anything going on in the book beyond the surface elements of the very-disjointed story, so Strout really needed to make Olive's character and story sing.

And it just didn't.

And this brings me to the final thing I know and that I've already kind of given away from the start. I know that I feel like Elizabeth Strout is an Alice Munro cover band. She's probably alright if you're a fan of the real deal but for some reason can't get the real deal. Like you wanted to hear the Scorpions play "Rock Me Like a Hurricane" but you're on a party boat and all you've got is Scrantonicity II to play Scorpions hits. It might scratch your itch or it might not. Of course, for those who were never big fans of the Scorpions, you'll probably be up on deck for the entire set.

That's me. I wish I had been up on deck reading some Paul Auster or Murakami or, heck, even some A.A. Milne while Olive Kitteridge played to the drunken several on the deck below.