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Cloggie Downunder
Perceptive, funny and sad in equal measure.
Olive, Again is the second book in the Olive Kitteridge series by award-winning, best-selling American author, Elizabeth Strout and it follows on almost directly from the first book. Strout again takes us into the lives of the people of Crosby, Maine, over a period of xx years, ordinary lives occasionally punctuated by extraordinary events that bring great joy or sorrow or excitement.
Having connected with Olive Kitteridge, recently-widowed Jack Kennison is disappointed when all contact suddenly ceases. Luckily, that’s not through any sort of offence but a series of miscommunications and an electronic hiccough. But while he’s on his own, he does make an effort to reconnect with the daughter from whom he’s estranged, and he reaches out to his late wife’s college crush, to be given an unpleasant surprise.
When he does reconnect with Olive, he also has a disturbing encounter with traffic cops to relate, while she shares her disdain over a baby shower she attends that culminates in delivering a baby. Olive visits a friend in a nursing home, observes that the home of a troubled local family takes the life of the husband when it is destroyed by fire, and finally invites her son, his wife and their children to visit.
She meets, for the first time, her (mostly) delightful two-year-old grandson, Henry, named for her late husband, but has to endure the presence of the boy’s step-siblings. She revels in reconnecting with her son but, what she witnesses from his wife when she reveals her plan to marry has her considering her own occasional public behaviour towards her husband.
Others whose lives intersect, sometimes only fleetingly, with Olive’s include young Kayley Callaghan, a late-in-life child who grieves the loss of her dad, feels ignored by her mom, visits a former neighbour in a nursing home, and works after school cleaning homes for Crosby’s matrons. She secretly shares something with one of their husbands that would attract disapproval.
When she comes to deal with the aftermath of her father’s death in the housefire, Suzanne Larkin seeks the support of his lawyer, Bernie Green, and they find common ground and give each other strength. Tom Coomb is surprised to find that his wife, Cindy, suffering from her chemo, actually wants visits from Olive Kitteridge.
Denny Pelletier worries about how quiet his grown children are until he encounters one of their classmate in a very bad way, and hears about the tragic fate of one of his own school mates; Civil war re-enactment enthusiast, Fergus MacPherson is told by his daughter that she’s the subject of a documentary, but the topic is very upsetting.
Olive has a pedicure, goes for a drive to Shirley Falls with Jack and is supportive when he has an uncomfortable encounter with a former lover. At the point when she has been widowed for a second time, for four months, she unexpectedly breakfasts with a Crosby student who became US Poet Laureate, which impresses only some she tells. She feels a distinct loneliness, a sadness emanates from this woman. Only later does she learn that she’s the subject of a poem. She observes “When you get old, you become invisible… it’s just that you don’t count anymore, and there’s something freeing about that.”
Strout gives the reader an update on the Burgess family when Jim and Helen visit Crosby: Jim misses Maine, Helen hates it. To his dismay, Bobby’s wife Margaret fails to conceal her dislike for Helen, too much alcohol is consumed and bones are accidentally broken. One of the protagonists from Amy and Isabelle also appears.
Olive has serious medical issues that warrant several visits from her son, and a kind of reconciliation, and eventually accepts that living alone in Jack’s house is no longer feasible. She ends up where she always dreaded going, and finds the other residents irritating until she connects with a newcomer. By the time she is eighty-three, there are continence and mobility issues, but she and the one friend she has at Maple Tree Apartments look out for each other. Memories, though, Olive has many, and begins to document them…
Olive continues to be a bit of an enigma: many in Crosby think her an old bag and wonder that anyone else would marry her; she is still direct to the point of rudeness, never suffers fools, manages to unwittingly estrange those she cares about to the extent of her own heartbreak (kids are just a needle in your heart, she later observes), yet has an ability to perceive when others are struggling, knowing when to step up, and what is required. Perceptive, funny and sad in equal measure.
Cathryn_Conroy
What a Treasure! This Is a Book About Life and Death That Is Filled with Wisdom and Grace
This is a 10-star book in a five-star world. With an imaginative structure, a riveting storyline, and incredibly vivid characters, this book by author Elizabeth Strout is one to read slowly, fully savor, and treasure.
This is the sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Olive Kitteridge," and, yes, you absolutely must read them in order. Although it is titled a novel, it's really a hybrid—as was "Olive Kitteridge"—between a short story collection and a novel. Each chapter is really a short story about a person, couple, or family living in Crosby, Maine. Olive Kitteridge is often the central character in these stories, but sometimes she makes only a cameo appearance. Still, there is a definite connecting thread through all the stories, and that's what makes it a novel.
Strout has so brilliantly crafted the character of Olive that I almost think she might be joining me on the sofa while I read. She is older now—in her 70s and 80s as the book progresses—but still a large woman with brightly-colored clothing, a big handbag, and distinct quirks, such as waving her hand over head when she says good-bye, responding "ay-yuh" a lot, and saying exactly what she thinks.
This is a book about life…and death. It's a book about life in the face of death. It's a book about life in spite of death. It's a book that will make you laugh and cry as we all must face not only the deaths of parents and friends, but also our own demise. It is a book packed with wit and wisdom and pithy life advice. But most of all, this is a book filled with grace and goodness.
Warning: Do read Elizabeth Strout's novel "The Burgess Boys" before you read this book. The chapter titled "Exiles" is essentially an epilogue of what happened to the Burgess family 10 years after that novel ends. In other words: Major spoilers!
Reid_B
A delightful curmudgeon
As with the first book, Olive Kitteridge, this is the story of a singular woman living her brief life on the coast of Maine, creating wreckage with her acerbic tongue and caustic judgments. She is deeply broken, our Olive, and not very likeable, and yet we love her and wish for her to succeed. This is the tightrope Elizabeth Strout has walked yet again in this second volume. How is it that such an unpleasant person can elicit such sympathy from us? I suspect the answer is the resonance we feel in response to her brokenness, how it chimes with our own. Though she is far more unskillful in her dealings with those around her than most of us, we have all had our moments of being the Olive in the room, the one who blurts out the ugly truth or the intolerant judgement, then wonders why we have become the pariahs.
It is rather odd to call this a novel (as it was the first book), because this really is a book of short stories interconnected by a single character, who sometimes is front and center, and other times barely even mentioned. Yet it becomes the story of a single life, much like a paint-by-numbers picture becomes comprehensible with the addition of each subsequent color, different shadings and hues of Olive become more evident with each passing chapter.
I particularly like her relationship to Jack Kennison, a person in whom she has met her match and who loves her despite herself, as did her late husband, Henry. But I also deeply appreciate Strout's expansion on Olive's connection to her son, Christopher, with whom she has both a deep bond and troubling animosity. She wishes to be loved by him, but seems incapable of being lovable with him. It is terribly heartbreaking, but also feels truthful and genuine.
A few quick notes: first of all, though this novel would stand alone, reading the first will give this one greater depth and meaning. Second, if you have not watched the adaptation of Olive Kitteridge with Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins (with Bill Murray as Jack Kennison), please do. They embody the characters so thoroughly and so well, it is difficult to imagine anyone else in those roles.
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