Olive Kitteridge
Fiction
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4.0 • 1.9K Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • The beloved first novel featuring Olive Kitteridge, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton and the Oprah’s Book Club pick Olive, Again
“Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive Kitteridge. . . . You’ll never forget her.”—USA Today
“Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force.”—The New Yorker
One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post Book World, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, People, Entertainment Weekly, The Christian Science Monitor, The Plain Dealer, The Atlantic, Rocky Mountain News, Library Journal
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.
The inspiration for the Emmy Award–winning HBO miniseries starring Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, and Bill Murray
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Olive Kitteridge is a book that sneaks up on you. One minute you’re reading a lyrical, contemplative novel about the inhabitants of a fictional town in coastal Maine, and the next minute you’ve walked in on a character airing intimate, explosive secrets. Elizabeth Strout’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner—the basis for an award-winning miniseries starring Frances McDormand—is flat-out magnificent. The novel makes you care profoundly about its perfectly flawed characters and their beautiful, emotionally treacherous world.
Customer Reviews
True to life
It’s sad what life does to us but the author nailed it here. A little difficult to follow all the characters
Maine
Very good book. Interesting approach. A series of linked short stories. Olive Kitteridge is in each, sometimes foreground, sometimes background. She’s an intense person. A good soul / person in many ways, which you become more and more aware of as the stories unfold. She’s also a harsh woman, quite mean sometimes, vindictive, judgmental. These flaws are most strongly felt when she is with her husband and son. Her husband and son contrast with Olive. They are gentle and passive, and especially with her son, Olive’s treatment seems very cruel. Remarkably, given her strong intellect and sometimes rather crude bluntness, Olive resists understanding this about herself, and, in a way, the book is about how she grows into this awareness. Set in a Maine seaside town, the stories are beautifully written.
Olive Kitteridge
This was the most depressing book I’ve ever read. It made me wonder at times if the author was writing about her own depressing thoughts, not a story written to entertain others. I thought several times about tossing it aside but decided there must be an ending coming that would draw the reader in and provide a reason for all the anger and messed up people that lived in this town. I was wrong. I hoped that I would find a silver lining at the end. I didn’t. It was a painful read for me.