Olive Kitteridge

Thoughts on Words by Andi Gregory Pearson


Olive Kitteridge - Daily Life Becomes Prize Winning Literature

     There is hue and outcry right now in the literary community because the Publisher’s Weekly top ten Best Books of 2009 is a list of contemporary fiction works by male authors only.  Many readers and writers are concerned that the list compilers have made a mistake by omitting women writers (although it should be noted that Heather McHugh is on the list for best poetry works).  While it may be true that more emphasis should be focused on outstanding women writers like Alice Monroe who won the Man Booker International Prize for her short stories, my response to that concern is two words – Pulitzer Prize. 
    The Pulitzer Prize for Literature 2009 went to Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.  We can be as dismissive and cavalier as we want to be about awards and honors but the Pulitzer Prize is a big deal.  And for my money, Strout earned it the old fashioned way - by being a brilliant observer of life and by writing a deep, messy, textured word portrait not only of the title character but of a small Maine town and its colorful population.  “Town is the church, and the grange hall, and the grocery store, and these days, the grocery store could use a coat of paint.”  The town may seem quiet, even boring, but the characters are alive, profound and show us the complicated nature of human life and love.
     I found it ironic that Olive’s initials are OK when it is clear that for most of the book, she is not ok.  Olive’s story is not a flashy one but rather one of everyday life in a community where each person’s story is known to others.  Olive and her pharmacist husband Henry have lived in town for a long time.  They built a house, raised a son and Olive taught math to seventh graders.  The fact that she never treated the children to a kind word probably accounts for their terror when they see her in the grocery store.  Even when they are adults and she is retired, they cannot bring themselves to call her by her first name.  Olive is not much kinder to her only son nor to her long-suffering husband, Henry. When he wants to know if it’s too much to expect her to accompany him to church, she replies, “Yes, it most certainly is too &*%# much to ask!”  We wonder how her husband can love her or how the reader can even like her.  Olive is brusque, unpleasant and self righteous and chances are good that we each know someone just like her.  As her life progresses, does she develop compassion or just adapt to situations to get what she wants out of life?  Is her emotion bottled up making this a story of longing or is she merely self centered and demanding? 
          Tangential to Olive are the other lives and stories in the town.  Strout has written the book in thirteen chapters, each a short story brilliantly woven and displayed.  We meet, among others, the cocktail lounge piano player, the grocer’s wife and the couple whose son is in prison.  “All these lives,” one character says, “all the stories we never know.”  But we do know them and we know individuals of Crosby, Maine, possibly better than we know our next door neighbors.  
    Complex relationships, powerful and life changing events, serious inner conflict and personal, daily life are all beautifully written about in Olive Kitteridge.  No wonder this book and its female author won one of the most prestigious awards in literature.