Olive, Again
Elizabeth Strout returns to Olive Kitteridge, the prickly retired schoolteacher from her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, in a sequel built from connected stories set in the coastal town of Crosby, Maine. Now in her seventies and eighties, Olive faces a second marriage, widowhood, illness, and a strained bond with her son. The stories also move among her neighbors, capturing the inner lives of people Olive brushes against. Strout writes with plain, exact prose about how it feels to grow old, to be wrong, and to keep reaching for connection. Olive remains difficult and self aware, alert to her own failures even as she struggles to change. The book continues Strout's portrait of ordinary lives and the late chances people get to understand themselves.
Also by Elizabeth Strout
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What you might want to know about Olive, Again
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A linked story collection follows the blunt, aging Olive Kitteridge through love, loss, and the small dramas of a Maine town.
It helps but is not required. Olive, Again stands on its own, though it deepens if you know the first book.
It is a collection of linked stories centered on Olive and the people of Crosby, Maine, a form Strout also used in the first book.
Olive, Again was written by Elizabeth Strout, published in 2019 by Random House.
Olive, Again is 304 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Olive, Again takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Olive, Again is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.