Olive Kitteridge – the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
This beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, turned into an Emmy Award-winning HBO mini-series, is an extraordinary story about an ordinary woman’s life, and a vibrant exploration of all that connects us. 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… So astonishingly good that I shall be reading it once a year for the foreseeable future and very probably for the rest of my life.'Evening Standard
Olive Kitteridge is a complex woman. Described by some as indomitable and by others as compassionate, she herself has always been certain that she is absolutely right about everything. A retired schoolteacher in a small coastal town in Maine, as she grows older she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life.
Through different narratives, telling the triumphs and tragedies of those around her, and spanning years, Olive’s story emerges. We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and a young man pained by loss – whom Olive comforts by her mere presence, while her own son feels overwhelmed by her sensitivities.
Praise for Elizabeth Strout
‘Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force.’ The New Yorker
'A terrific writer.' Zadie Smith
'So good it gave me goosebumps.’Sunday Times
'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