Olive Kitteridge: The Beloved Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novel

Elizabeth Strout

Apr 2013 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Olive Kitteridge – the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
 
This beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, turned into an Emmy Award-winning HBO mini-series, is an extraordinary story about an ordinary woman’s life, and a vibrant exploration of all that connects us. The story of Olive Kitteridge will make you laugh, nod in recognition, wince in pain, and shed a tear or two.
'As perfect a novel as you will ever read… So astonishingly good that I shall be reading it once a year for the foreseeable future and very probably for the rest of my life.'Evening Standard
 
Olive Kitteridge is a complex woman. Described by some as indomitable and by others as compassionate, she herself has always been certain that she is absolutely right about everything. A retired schoolteacher in a small coastal town in Maine, as she grows older she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life.
 
Through different narratives, telling the triumphs and tragedies of those around her, and spanning years, Olive’s story emerges. We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and a young man pained by loss – whom Olive comforts by her mere presence, while her own son feels overwhelmed by her sensitivities.
 
 
Praise for Elizabeth Strout
‘Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force.’ The New Yorker 
'A terrific writer.' Zadie Smith
'So good it gave me goosebumps.’Sunday Times
'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own.' Hilary Mantel

Ratings and reviews

Really hard to follow the story line. Leaves a lot of unanswered questions

The author's characters were brilliantly crafted.

Felt the windows on different events in Olives life were too dissipated to allow me to get immersed in her character.

About the author

Elizabeth Strout (born January 6, 1956) is an American author of fiction. She was born in Portland, Maine. After graduating from Bates College, she spent a year in Oxford, England. In 1982 she graduated with honors, and received both a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law and a Certificate of Gerontology from the Syracuse School of Social Work. Strout wrote Amy and Isabelle over the course of six or seven years, which when published was shortlisted for the 2000 Orange Prize and nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Amy and Isabelle was made into a television movie starring Elisabeth Shue and was produced by Oprah Winfrey's studio, Harpo Films. Strout was a NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) professor at Colgate University during the Fall Semester of 2007, where she taught creative writing. She was also on the faculty of the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2009 Strout was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Olive Kitteridge, a collection of connected short stories she wrote about a woman and her immediate family who lived on the coast of Maine. Strout also wrote The Burgess Boys in 2013 which made The New York Times Best Seller List. Ms. Strout's title, My name is Lucy Barton, made the New York Times Best Seller List in 2016. Her newest title, Anything is Possible (2017), won the 2018 Story Prize.