Strout, Elizabeth. Olive Kitteridge. New York: Random House, 2008.
Reason read: In Rockland, Maine, there is a festival dedicated to lobsters. Read Olive Kitteridge in honor of the critters.
Comprised of thirteen short stories with varying narratives, Strout cleverly tells the story of Olive Kitteridge. Olive is lurking in most of each connecting tale. Sometimes characters gossip about her, like in the story called “Winter Concert.” In the first story “Pharmacy” Olive’s husband, Henry Kitteridge, doesn’t seem to have a happy life since he retired from his old fashioned pharmacy. Olive is presented as a woman who doesn’t suffer fools easily. She shows the world an angry and proud face most of the time. I think they call it “Yankee stoicism.” Other stories:
- “Incoming Tide” – Olive is present when a woman tries to commit suicide.
- “The Piano Player” – Angela O’Meara plays the piano for ungrateful guests.
- “A Little Burst” – Olive’s only son is getting married to a woman she doesn’t like.
- “Starving” – Harmon is starving in his marriage while he befriends a girl with anorexia.
- “A Different Road” – a couple are victims of a crime by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Winter Concert” – A couple attends a concert where the wife learns of her husband’s secret rendezvous.
- “Tulips” – bitterness.
- “A Basket of Trips” – a death cuts a marriage short.
- “Ship in a Bottle” – a girl is stood up on her wedding day.
- “Security” – Olive tries to visit her son in New York; a story about expectations.
- “Criminal” – the story of a neurotic kleptomaniac.
- “River” – My favorite story of the the bunch. Olive is a widow and learning to be polite.
Author fact: Strout also wrote Amy & Isabelle and Abide with Me. Both are on my Challenge list. I read Amy & Isabelle in 2007 and I read Abide with Me in 2013.
Book trivia: Olive Kitteridge won a Pulitzer in 2008.
Playlist: “Good Night, Irene,” “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The First Noel,” “We Shall Overcome, “”Fly Me to the Moon,” “My Way,” “Feelings,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” Beethoven, “Fools Rush In,” “Whenever I Feel Afraid,” Phish, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,” and Debussy.
Nancy said: Pearl said Olive Kitteridge would be an excellent choice for a book club.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the curious chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135).
~*LunaSea*~ 