Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout's 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner is a novel told in thirteen linked short stories set in the fictional coastal town of Crosby, Maine. The connecting figure is Olive Kitteridge, a retired seventh-grade math teacher whose tall, blunt, chronically irritated presence anchors every chapter, sometimes as the protagonist, sometimes as a passing neighbor noticed at a piano bar or a funeral or in the corner of a hospital room. Around her, Strout assembles a quiet portrait of a town where a former student returns to commit suicide, a widower learns to love a stranger, a young anorexic is forcibly fed by Olive in a bathroom, and a lobsterman and his daughter survive a hostage situation. Olive herself is one of the most fully realized older women in modern American fiction, by turns generous, cruel, lonely, and embarrassed by her own feelings. The book launched a long Strout universe and a celebrated HBO adaptation.
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What you might want to know about Olive Kitteridge
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Thirteen linked stories follow Olive Kitteridge, a retired math teacher in coastal Crosby, Maine. Some center on her, some only touch her in passing. The novel quietly assembles a long marriage and a small town.
Yes. Olive Kitteridge won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Elizabeth Strout has continued the character with a sequel, Olive, Again, published in 2019.
Yes. HBO produced a four-part Olive Kitteridge miniseries in 2014 starring Frances McDormand. The show won eight Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Limited Series.
Olive Kitteridge was written by Elizabeth Strout, published in 2007 by Fazi.
Olive Kitteridge is 288 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 Kitteridge takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Olive Kitteridge is a standalone novel by Elizabeth Strout, not part of a series.
Olive Kitteridge is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.