Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge is a 2008 book by Elizabeth Strout, an interconnected series of short stories. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and is described at that site as "a collection of 13 short stories set in small-town Maine that packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by Olive, the title character, blunt, flawed and fascinating." This was an engrossing, sometimes painful, read and dealt with perceptions in relationships. You are not the person others think you are, but sometimes you are more the person others think you are than not. Some truths are hard to hear. I will definitely read more by this author.

from the back of the book:

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.

quotes that struck me:

...that must be the way of life, to get something figured out when it was too late.

...

Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts." Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.

...

But after a certain point in a marriage, you stopped having a certain kind of fight, olive thought, because when the years behind you were more than the years in front of you, things were different.

...

In the dark of the car, his wife, Jane, sat with her nice black coat buttoned up all the way -the coat they'd bought together last year, going through all these stores. Hard work; they'd get thirsty and end up having a sundae at the place on Water Street, the sullen young waitress always giving them their senior discount even though they never asked; they had joked about that -how the girl had no idea, as she plunked down their mugs of coffee, that her own arm would someday be sprinkled with age spots, or that coffee had to be planned since blood pressure medicine made you widdle so much, that life picked up speed, and then most of it was gone -made you breathless, really.

...

They had fun together these days, they really did. It was as if marriage had been a long, complicated meal, and now there was this lovely dessert.

...

She didn't like to be alone. Even more, she didn't like being with people.

...

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it. But she had that memory now, of something healthy and pure.

...

Dying. Not Dying. Either way, it tires you out.

The New York Times says, "The pleasure in reading “Olive Kitteridge” comes from an intense identification with complicated, not always admirable, characters." Kirkus Reviews calls it "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." Lit Lovers has excerpts from several reviews and provides a discussion guide.