Olive, Again!

Olive Kitteridge doesn't suffer fools gladly. Cold, grumpy, judgmental, Olive can be a handful. Just ask any of her neighbors in the small town of Crosby, Maine, where Olive taught math at the local high school and her husband, now deceased, ran the pharmacy. Just ask her son, who moved as far away as he could to be free of her constant criticism. But don't ask those whose lives Olive  forever changed even when she didn't realize it. They might tell you Olive saved them.

This is the dichotomy that the remarkable Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout so ably sets out on the page. How she makes us scream with fury at Olive's

cruelty one minute, then quietly tear up at her acts of compassion the next. Olive Kitteridge is a conundrum, but we all know someone like her. Sometimes we may even see ourselves in the aging Olive who believes most folks are just full of crap, that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and that the indignities of aging pretty much suck.

If you read the first "Olive Kitteridge" you'll jump right in to "Olive, Again." The format of linked vignettes still works beautifully, giving the reader small but spot on glimpses of the mundane but never boring goings on in Crosby over generations. There are some hilarious scenes, especially if you're the type of person who would rather have your nails torn out one by one than attend ONE more baby or bridal shower. Olive is the master of the eye roll who will never understand the etiquette of oohing and aahing over diaper bags and onesies. But, give her the chance to be useful, like helping a young woman give birth in the back seat of a big old Pontiac, and yes, Olive is there.

There is a poignant chapter in which Olive has to come to terms with aging and dependence after she falls on her porch and has difficulty getting up. For several weeks she's visited by two very different young female aides and therapists who tend to her injuries. The one happens to be a Muslim in a headscarf about whom Olive worries incessantly, afraid that she'll cross paths with the second woman, Betty, a local who drives a pick-up truck and sports a Trump bumper sticker. Hearing in town that Betty has a pretty horrible existence, and trying to fathom why anyone would support that "orange monster," Olive sits down with her and simply asks, "What is your life like, Betty?" No one had ever taken even that minimal amount of interest in Betty before. The floodgates open.

Elizabeth Strout excels at stream of consciousness writing. Through the busy mind and constant thoughts of a woman like Olive Kitteridge, Strout lays out the visceral fears and pains of the aging single woman, the loneliness, regrets, the missed opportunities, but also the moments when we say yes to love, to connection. This lovely, thoughtful book may not have made Library Journal's top ten this year but it's still an exceptional read. I just wish I hadn't seen the TV special because now, rather than utilizing my full imagination when I visualize Olive, all I can picture is that fabulously talented curmudgeon Frances McDormand in the title role.