Olive Kitteridge: Summary and book reviews of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, plus links to an excerpt from Olive Kitteridge and a biography of Elizabeth Strout.
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
Hardcover: Mar 2008,
288 pages.
Paperback: Sep 2008,
304 pages.
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life – sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
Booklist
Starred Review. Though loneliness and loss haunt these pages, Strout also supplies gentle humor and a nourishing dose of hope.
Library Journal
Readers will have to decide for themselves whether it's worth the ride to the last few pages to witness Olive's slide into something resembling insight.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Like this story, the collection is easy to read and impossible to forget.
Kirkus Reviews
A perfectly balanced portrait of the human condition, encompassing plenty of anger, cruelty and loss without ever losing sight of the equally powerful presences of tenderness, shared pursuits and lifelong loyalty.
Entertainment Weekly
Rarely does a story collection pack such a gutsy emotional punch.
The New Yorker
Strout makes us experience not only the terrors of change but also the terrifying hope that change can bring: she plunges us into these churning waters and we come up gasping for air.
USA Today.
Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive Kitteridge. . . . You’ll never forget her. . . . [Elizabeth Strout] constructs her stories with rich irony and moments of genuine surprise and intense emotion. . . . Glorious, powerful stuff.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Olive Kitteridge still lingers in memory like a treasured photograph.
O: The Oprah Magazine
Perceptive, deeply empathetic . . . Olive is the axis around which these thirteen complex, relentlessly human narratives spin themselves into Elizabeth Strout’s unforgettable novel in stories.
San Francisco Chronicle
Funny, wicked and remorseful, Mrs. Kitteridge is a compelling life force, a red-blooded original. When she’s not onstage, we look forward to her return. The book is a page-turner because of her.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Frank F. Annoyance I found the third-to-last and second-to-last stories to be an annoyance (the one about the two young sisters whose mother tried to shoot her daughter's boyfriend and the one about the disturbed young preacher's daughter). These were two very... Read More
Rated of 5
by Dorothy T. Pulitzer Prize worthy (Really a four and a half) Olive is someone I didn't like, then I did, then I didn't, and at the end she was someone I was able to understand and accept for who she was. I am certain there is a lesson or two for each of us in this well paced and... Read More
War, natural disaster, reckless gods and the recognition of impermanence in the world are just some of the threads that AS Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark.
A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, exploring how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths.
Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants, Margaret Powell's classic memoir of her time in service is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high.
Vivid, daring, and unforgettable, The Printmaker's Daughter shines fresh light on art, loyalty, and the tender and indelible bond between a father and daughter.
I read The Healing in two sittings it is a fascinating story of plantation life at the beginning of the Civil War. Granada, a slave newborn child...
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The Uncommon Reader is a novella by novelist and playwright, Alan Bennett. The story starts with the Queen coming across the mobile library van...
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Library Journal
of 5
by Frank F.
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