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Olive Kitteridge (Olive Kitteridge, #1)

Elizabeth Strout

Discussion: July/August 2008

Discussion leader: Jenn

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July/August 2008

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
By Jenn · 25 posts · 78 views

last updated Jul 29, 2010 05:10PM

Unaccustomed Earth
By Betsy · 1 post · 9 views

last updated May 27, 2010 11:50AM

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What Members Thought

Jun 25, 2021 Erika Nerdypants rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: family, fiction, library-reads, women, audiobooks, audio-books, strong-female-leads, marriage

So, so good. My only regret is that it's over. ...more

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Sep 02, 2013 Michelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In an attempt to read the more recent Pulitzer fiction winners, I decided to listen to Olive Kitterage. I definitely enjoyed these bleak linked stories. Honestly, linked stories are one of my favorite literary devices and Stout did a great job dropping Olive into each story. I like this one much better than Goon Squad.

I loved Olive - her acerbic nature was hilarious to me. She used the phrase "hells bells" which is also one of my routine utterances. Unfortunately, I figure I will be/act very si ...more

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Oct 29, 2019 Doreen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recently, I received an advance reading copy of Olive, Again which is a sequel to Olive Kitteridge, so I decided to read the latter before moving on to the former.

In terms of format, Olive Kitteridge consists of 13 interrelated short stories. This is not my favourite narrative structure, but Elizabeth Strout makes it work. The eponymous character is a retired school teacher living in Crosby, Maine. Olive does not appear in all of the stories, but in each she makes a brief appearance or is at lea Recently, I received an advance reading copy of Olive, Again which is a sequel to Olive Kitteridge, so I decided to read the latter before moving on to the former.

In terms of format, Olive Kitteridge consists of 13 interrelated short stories. This is not my favourite narrative structure, but Elizabeth Strout makes it work. The eponymous character is a retired school teacher living in Crosby, Maine. Olive does not appear in all of the stories, but in each she makes a brief appearance or is at least mentioned. Over the course of the book, Olive’s personality is revealed in depth.

The initial impression one has of Olive is not positive. In the first story, which focuses on Henry, Olive’s gentle and kind husband, she comes across as callous and uncaring. Her first words are about Denise, the young woman Henry hires to work in his drug store: “’Mousy . . . Looks just like a mouse. . . . No one’s cute who can’t stand up straight.’” Though she is “’Not keen on it,’” Henry invites Denise and her husband to dinner. During that meal Olive scolds her husband for accidentally spilling ketchup and makes no effort to be gracious: “For dessert they were each handed a blue bowl with a scoop of vanilla ice cream sliding in its center.” Later, we learn that she never apologizes for her comments; Henry tells her, “’In all the years we’ve been married, all the years, I don’t believe you’ve ever once apologized. For anything.’”

This impression of Olive gradually changes. Though she can be rude, selfish, and judgmental, she is also capable of compassion and understanding. For example, when she meets a girl who has an eating disorder, she cries and says, “’I don’t know who you are, but young lady, you’re breaking my heart.’” In some of the stories, we see the impact she has had on her former students; one girl remembers Mrs. Kitteridge saying, “’Don’t be scared of your hunger. If you’re scared of your hunger, you’ll just be one more ninny like everyone else.’”

Henry speaks of his wife as having “sharp opinions . . . stormy moods” and “a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away.” Olive herself admits, “deep down there is a thing inside me, and sometimes it swells up like the head of a squid and shoots blackness through me. I haven’t wanted to be this way.” Her father committed suicide because of depression, and there is more than a hint suggesting that she herself is prone to periods of depression. In fact, in the very first reference to Olive in the novel, there is mention of Henry’s uneasiness when “his wife often left their bed to wander through their home in the night’s dark hours.”

Olive also proves to be a dynamic character. She learns about herself. She realizes that “the extreme capriciousness of [her] moods” and her bad temper and her trying to control her son’s life make her at least partially responsible for the tension between them. She comes to accept that she has little control over people: “Who in the world, this strange and incomprehensible world, did she think she was?” She realizes that the reason she hates scared people, like the woman she describes as an “asseverating mouse,” is that “she hated the scared part of herself.”

What Olive and others in the novel come to understand is that “life was a thing to celebrate” and we need to appreciate what we have when we have it. It is only late in the book that Olive acknowledges “She’d never had a friend as loyal, as kind, as her husband.” Henry always sees more than her “outer Olive-ness,” but she often sees only his timidity and that to her is a terrible flaw. She realizes love should not be squandered: “Love was not to be tossed away carelessly.” In the end, she understands her flaws and so is less judgmental and more accepting of others.

Though, Olive is the focus of the novel, the individual stories focus on other people living in the community. These stories can be read as standalone stories; each one shows have various people deal with what life brings them. Everyone has “their basket of trips,” their hopes, and everyone has their burdens; it’s our approach to life that is important.

I understand why Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitizer Prize for this book. It portrays a complicated, flawed, and often contradictory individual in whom we cannot but recognize some aspects of ourselves.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). ...more

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