Olive Kitteridge

• Author: Elizabeth Strout
• 270 pages
• Amazon Link

For the longest time, I thought Olive Kitteridge was the author's name. This book is a collection of short stories - 13 of them - with a larger than life character, Olive Kitteridge, who weaves in and out of the stories. Only towards the end, I realized that the book was really a look at Olive through the perspective of the many different folks in the small Maine town that she lived in. The book is written in a style where each of these different characters take center stage during their 15 pages of fame and you get to view their story and how it relates to Olive and her husband Henry.

Elizabeth Strout weaves her stories effortlessly and every single one of them is a pleasure to read. She is able to describe the rather mundane everyday events in the small town of Crosby, Maine with a clarity that makes you feel like you were there, experiencing the Maine countryside. The characters seem very familiar and there were many parts in the book where I stopped and wondered whether this is a page from my life in the not too distant future. This book won the Pulitzer prize in 2009, and after reading it, I can see why.