The beloved first novel featuring Olive Kitteridge from the author of Olive, Again and Oh William!
Olive Kitteridge: indomitable, compassionate, and often unpredictable. A retired schoolteacher in a small coastal town in Maine, as Olive grows older, she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life. She is a woman who sees into the hearts of those around her, their triumphs and tragedies.
A penetrating, vibrant exploration of the human soul, the story of Olive Kitteridge will make you laugh, nod in recognition, wince in pain, and shed a tear or two.
'As perfect a novel as you will ever read'
Evening Standard
'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own'
Hilary Mantel
I came thisclose to giving this book up on the second or third page, only (only!) because I was waist-deep in Cormac McCarthy and had no use, at present, for charming small-townsfolk on the gold coast of Maine. But, it had gotten high praise from a fellow Goodreads-er whose taste in books I greatly respect, so I fought the urge and forged ahead.
Thank goodness.
I will gladly say I have never (read: rarely) been proven so dead wrong. By the fourth page I was hooked; by the fiftieth it had up-ended every prejudice, until there was nothing left to do but sit down, shut up, and read, read, read.
I’ve been trying to find for weeks now this quote I had just recently lost, how any true person has ten different sides, how we are every one capable of great and disparate things*. The point being, this is one of the incredibly rare— presumably impossible— novels that gives a character just that: all ten different sides.
Highly recommended.
*That’s ok, Whitman said it best anyway: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Reading updates
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Started reading
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5 May, 2010:
Finished reading
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5 May, 2010:
Reviewed