Olive, Again

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout (2019)

Olive Kitteridge is back in another set of connected stories that feels like a novel. We meet a slew of interesting characters as Olive finds love and marries for the second time, and the book takes us at least ten years beyond that. We see Olive get into her eighties and decline a bit, but she's not too old to make new friends and to maintain her straightforward, slightly abrasive personality.

It's been a while since I read the first book, but I think she stars in more stories in this one. There were still a few focused on other characters in which she only made a passing appearance, but she maintained a pretty strong presence. Somehow she felt more likable from the beginning of this book, but that may just be because I already got to know her and I know she's not the mean old lady some people find her to be. She doesn't have a great relationship with her son or his wife, so she hasn't even met her grandchildren at the start of the book. But they do end up having a family visit, a struggle that is eventually worth it.

I was pleased to see Olive begin a friendship with a man which turned into a marriage. We get so few stories of older people having relationships, and I like the reminder that romance doesn't have to stop past a certain age. I also enjoyed her new friendship with Isabelle (who we first met in the novel Amy and Isabelle.)

One of the things that so endears me to Olive is that despite coming across as aloof and even unkind, she speaks up on behalf of others. For instance, she had a rotating schedule of home health aides, and the first day that Betty arrived and Olive noticed that her truck had a bumper sticker promoting "that horrible orange-haired man" who is president, Olive told her immediately that they would not discuss politics. One day when Betty was relieved from her shift by a Somalian woman and was rude to her, Olive gave her a very firm talking-to about how she wouldn't have prejudice in her house.

It could have been depressing to see Olive get older, deal with health issues, and lose people she loved. But somehow it didn't. Perhaps because Olive herself didn't want sympathy; she knows that's just the direction life goes. I really enjoyed revisiting Olive and seeing that she isn't letting old age get her down.

Amy & Isabelle : a review

The premise of Amy and Isabelle is a bit creepy. Sixteen-year-old Amy and her mother Isabelle live alone, Amy’s father having died when she was just a baby. Isabelle is rather reserved and has no social life, but she and Amy have a good relationship. Then Amy begins an affair with her math teacher, and they are caught together by Isabelle’s boss, causing a rift between mother and daughter. The teacher leaves town, but Amy remains convinced he will return for her.

Meanwhile, Isabelle is going through personal issues of her own. The pregnancy of Amy’s friend Stacy dredges up bad feelings for Isabelle, and it becomes obvious that the reason she isn’t close to anyone is because she is unwilling to open up about her past.

I really liked watching how Amy and Isabelle’s relationship changes throughout the book. There was also an interesting shift of focus - the first part of the story was all about Amy and her illicit relationship and everything she was going through, but then it turns to Isabelle, her romantic history, and her self-imposed isolation. This sort of insight into characters’ personalities is exactly what I loved about Olive Kitteridge, so I really enjoyed going back and reading this older novel.

Olive Kitteridge: a review

A novel in stories set in the small town of Crosby, Maine, Olive Kitteridge is a peek inside the lives and minds of various residents. Olive appears somewhere in every story, but not always as a main character. We also meet her steadfast husband, a former student of Olive’s who is considering suicide, a local piano player trying to get over a futureless romance, a jilted young bride-to-be, and many other intriguing characters.

Olive is a creature of habit, with very particular expectations of other people, which they don’t usually live up to. She has very strong opinions and no qualms about sharing them. (Her views on George W. Bush are especially hilarious.) I very much enjoyed reading about her and found her sympathetic, but she is not someone I would want to actually spend time with. Still, she is fascinatingly real and complicated and you can see how easy it would be to become such a person.

My mother is around the same age as Olive, also a retired teacher (who also had no love for George W. Bush) but with a very different outlook, and I can’t help thinking about how things could have been different for Olive. She is unapologetic and stubborn, which has cost her a lot – she is emotionally distant and pushes people away - and she seems, through most of the book, not to recognize how she has made her life into what it is. It’s not a terrible life, but not especially fulfilling.

I couldn’t get enough of this town and its inhabitants. Strout has such a talent for creating compelling characters that each one could have been the center of his or her own novel, and I would have been happy to read all of those novels. Such a perfect little book!