Olive Kitteridge: Fiction …. by Elizabeth Strout
“Hell. We’re always alone. Born alone. Die alone,” says Olive Kitteridge, redoubtable seventh-grade math teacher in Crosby, Maine. Anyone who gets in Olive’s way had better watch out, for she crashes unapologetically through life like an emotional storm trooper. She forces her husband, Henry, the town pharmacist, into tactical retreat; and she drives her beloved son, Christopher, across the country and into therapy. Covering a period of 30-odd years, most of the stories feature Olive as their focus, but in some she is bit player or even a footnote while other characters take center stage to sort through their own fears and insecurities. Though loneliness and loss haunt these pages, Strout also supplies gentle humor and a nourishing dose of hope.
People are sustained by the rhythms of ordinary life and the natural wonders of coastal Maine, and even Olive is sometimes caught off guard by life’s baffling beauty. ‘
The Atlantic
The Washington Post Book World
The Christian Science Monitor
San Francisco Chronicle
Salon
Chicago Tribune
The Wall Street Journal
$9 Publisher: Random House (September 30, 2008) www.amazon.com
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