Purchase a copy for yourself here!
It’s been over a decade since Elizabeth Strout published her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Olive Kitteridge. In the intervening years, the novel was adapted as an award winning series for HBO starring Frances McDormand. Strout has returned to her eponymous heroine in Olive, Again, a collection of stories about the residents of Crosby, Maine, and most notably, Olive Kitteridge. Strout wrote of the urge to re-enter Olive’s world for a sequel, “That Olive! She continues to surprise me, continues to enrage me, continues to sadden me, and continues to make me love her.” Readers of this sequel will feel the same way, as Strout has brought her characteristic wit and staggering capacity for introspection to this thoughtful sequel.
Olive, Again picks up with Olive, two years after the death of her husband, at the beginning of her romance with a local retiree, Jack Kennison, who has also lost his own wife. Jack is a retired Harvard professor who is plagued by regrets—about his extramarital affair that ended in a sexual harassment lawsuit, or his rejection of his gay daughter—which have resurfaced following the death of his wife. Olive shares some of Jack’s frustrations, she also has a complicated relationship with her only child, and thus the two find companionship and comfort in each other, and eventually get married. Loneliness is a crucial concept in this novel, as characters struggle to find connection after the loss of a loved one or a traumatic event. Many of the characters struggle with effective communication, which often provokes alienation within familial relationships.
The thirteen vignettes of life in Crosby are connected by these strands of loss, trauma, and the desire for connection. One of the most affecting stories, called “Light”, is told from the perspective of a woman suffering from terminal cancer, who is visited by Olive Kitteridge, one of the only community members who has shown any interest in her condition. This woman tires of her husband’s constant attention, and looks to Olive for companionship without judgment or demonstrative pity. This is one of Olive’s more lovable moments, where she demonstrates her capacity to connect with those who seek her honesty and wisdom.
In another story, Suzanne Larkin, who appeared in Olive Kitteridge as the sister of a young man who stabbed a woman 29 times, returns to Crosby after her family home has been burnt down by meth addicts and her elderly father has perished in the fire. The trip uncovers memories of spousal abuse between Suzanne’s father and his alcoholic wife whom he couldn’t care for and possibly assaulted out of frustration. Suzanne also discovers that sexual abuse may have occurred in her home between her mother and her very troubled brother, and she feels increasingly inundated with these painful familial memories. Suzanne struggles with the wrongdoings of her loved ones, and wonders whether she too has been tainted by this root of evil in her family, in one of the more devastating stories in the collection.
This novel is less about loss or trauma than it is about filling in spaces of emptiness in one’s life. It offers empathy and friendship as virtues that can mend the brokenness of both society and individuals, and emphasizes both in subject and in form the importance of putting oneself in another’s shoes and attempting to understand their reality. Strout has created a universe of complex characters muddling through some of the worst circumstances that life has to offer, but she infuses their narratives with a hopefulness that feels essentially human. This novel and its titular character are once again quite charming and utterly unforgettable.