Book of The Month – March

Easy choice this month – Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. This is the portrait of a difficult woman, maths teacher Olive Kitteridge, and of a community, a small coastal town in Maine. But, is it a novel or a collection of short stories? What I love about this book is that it works as both.

With each of the thirteen episodes there is a satisfying 'epiphany.' Yet as you read on, core threads are explored: the contrast between Olive and husband Henry, the spectre of suicide that hovers over Olive, her troubled relationship with her son, Christopher, and, why does Olive seem to want people to dislike her?  As one neighbour remarks, "Olive had a way about her that was absolutely without apology."

Some of the episodes are narrated from Olive's viewpoint. In others we glimpse her as part of someone else's story. We witness her acts of silent compassion, her level-headedness when held hostage in drugs raid at the local hospital, we see her move through the town like some silent force, admired by some but, more often than not, disliked.

This is a book about loyalty and betrayal the small triumphs and huge disappointments in life. It builds into a compelling exploration of why we might need to get along, or at least try to understand, the people we'd much rather avoid.

Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge and it's obvious why. As well the humanity of the subject matter, the writing seems effortless. Strout draws the reader into the nuanced, the not-quite-said, the dark undertow, and leaves us questioning - What is really going on beneath the surface these apparently ordinary and unremarkable lives in a quiet town by the sea?

More about Elizabeth Strout's other books on her website, here.

Watch this video - Elizabeth Strout on the importance of good sentences

 

Comments

[Pamela Johnson]

Your last point is well made - commercial pressure - certainly with UK publishers. Let's hope the success of the likes of Strout, Vann and Egan will make them think they're missing a trick!

Thanks for reminding me to check out Jennifer Egan. I'm still catching up after my trip to the States, but I found an interview with her on Radio 4's Open Book, she says interesting things about writing, I plucked a quote from that and have just posted it as the new quote of the week from Egan. The link to the interview should still be live.

Are some writers better in the short form? I'm not sure that has to be so. I'm thoroughly enjoying Colm Toibin's new collection, The Empty Family, each one seems to pack a novel in a few pages, and yet he's had most success with novels.

[Kellie Jackson]

That's a good question. I'm not sure there's a neat answer though. As you say, life is messy and episodic. Memory & experience is subjective and this is what 'Olive Kitteridge' explores so well. While the linked short story form serves Elizabeth Stout's voice so effectively here - could she have delivered all this in a novel? Probably - as she's such a talented writer but the outcome would be a totally different animal. Thinking about David Vann's 'Legend of a Suicide' - a series of short stories on a related theme versus his latest novel 'Caribou Island' (dominated by the same theme) - I wonder if the short story form suits some writers better than others? This is a different issue but I wonder how much commercial pressure is placed on new writers in particular to abandon the short story and produce long fiction?

[Pamela Johnson]

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll look out for the Jennifer Egan. I think this form is really interesting. Been thinking about it a lot since reading David Shield's 'Reality Hunger' - his challenge to novelists - too in thrall to 'plot'. Both Elizabeth strout and, by the sounds of it, Jennifer Egan, are exploring parts of the whole, perhaps with more 'authenticity' so that the cumulative whole feels more rich. Is dramatic story form more convincing over the short form than the longer form of the novel, in terms of the reader feeling in the presence of a lived life rather than a cardboard cut-out? Life is messy and episodically dramatic. Perhaps we readers engage quickly with intensely and authentically rendered incidents and don't mind filling in gaps between? So linked short stories feel more a reflection of the lived life than the novel? I'm still thinking about this, what do you think?

[Kellie Jackson]

Hi Pam. Sounds like a good read. I'm in Devon on hols and in need of a new reading book. You got me with, 'Is it a novel or a collection of short stories?' I just finished reading Jennifer Egan's, A Visit From the Good Squad - beautifully written but episodic - each chapter could stand alone as a complete story. But works brilliantly as a whole too. From a writing point of view such books spur me on. All the best, Kellie