Thoughts: Olive Kitteridge

Title: Olive Kitteridge
Author: Elizabeth Strout
Year: 2008
Pages: 270
First Line: "For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy." 


There was a somewhat extended period of time between the day I started reading Olive Kitteridge and the day I finished it this summer.  Elizabeth Strout structured the novel as a series of short stories, so perhaps that lended itself to my lengthy reading.  There were times when I would read several stories in a row and times when I would read one story a week.  Regardless, all of the stories related to Olive in some way, even without her physical presence in a particular story.

I'm not sure what I expected from Olive Kitteridge as the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner.  However, the writing was gorgeous throughout the entire book.  It's the amazingly detailed descriptions that have stuck with me since I finished it, more so than the individual stories.  In fact, the stories were actually quite sad.  I can't say that I thought a single character was genuinely happy.  It seemed that the people of Crosby, Maine (the location of the novel) had more than their share of pain.

Olive, in particular, suffered a great deal.  In my opinion, she caused much of her own pain.  There were many instances when I just wanted to give her a good shake and tell her to stop acting that way, that she could help herself.  I doubt she would have listened to me, though.  There were also times that I sympathized with Olive, but mostly Olive showed me that I never want to be stuck in a self-defeating cycle of loneliness and anger.

My Rating: 3 of 5