It is a collection of short stories featuring a fictional character named Olive Kitteridge, who appears in either a central or supporting role in them. She is described a solid build woman with an apathetic and borderline blunt personality. Since she has been a math teacher for the local junior high school, the entire town knows her more or less because of her profession. They also know her because of her husband, Henry Kitteridge, who worked as a pharmacist for most of his life.
Unlike his wife, Henry is mild-mannered and goes the extra mile to please people in any possible way that he can. They are based out of a fictional town near Portland, Maine. But other locations like New York City pop in every now and then as the stories move along with Alice to different locations.
And that’s the premise of this entire book. How Alice has crossed paths with different people in this town, how she tries to bond with a few of them, her changing relationship dynamic with her husband and son, and how she is navigating life without much support from anyone.
Out of all these stories, I found a few to be quite remarkable. For example, ‘Pharmacy’ which focuses on Olive’s husband Henry working as the town’s pharmacist and how he gets infatuated with his young colleague Denise. Denise is the polar opposite of Olive in many ways, and unlike his wife, she leans on him pretty hard. It’s no wonder that Henry is taken by her even though she doesn’t reciprocate and eventually moves on with the shop delivery boy, Jerry. Henry maintains a neutral relationship with them for years to come without declaring the fact that Denise holds a special place in his heart for the rest of his life.
Another story called ‘The Piano Player’ shows the author’s penmanship to build an intriguing plot with minimal settings and numbered characters. Indeed, Olive and Henry brush past the main character called Angela briefly through this entire saga, this quasi-independence is what makes this story all the more alluring.
Although all the stories are not tightly bound such as ‘A Little Burst’ and ‘Security’ which talk about Olive’s son Chris’ first and second marriage respectively. Olive comes across as a petty, whimsical and territorial mother-in-law in the first one; whereas the second one portrays her as an eccentric, aloof and detached mother. As a reader, we are supposed to understand that Olive has gone through a whole different transformation between these two marriages and is dealing with loneliness on account of Henry’s health.
Thus, the final story ‘River’ is a natural progression for Olive when she develops relationship with Jack Kennison. They both are struggling with widowhood, come from the similar teaching backgrounds and hold same nonchalant attitude towards life. So much so that they are ready to look past their differences to hold each through the winter of their lives. It’s an endearingly warm finale for someone like Olive who comes across frigid for the most of her fictional life.
So, the important question- whether it’s a good book and worth your time? Well, the answer is complicated. Although the central theme is interesting, the loosely threaded stories falter in their execution. As I said before, there are brilliant exceptions but those are few and far between scattered across that particular story. Therefore, I found these stories lacking depth in places making my mind wander and lose focus for significant period of time. Sadly, it means that it will be a while before I pick up another Strout novel.
But if you are her ardent fan then maybe you can pick this up as a strictly one time read. On my part, I am looking forward to watching its screen adaptation as I believe Frances McDormand might have put in life as Olive Kitteridge the way this book cannot.