OK? OK!

   The cover first: as Barbara and Samantha said in the comments the other day, this picture has nothing to do with the book at all, and why something so unrepresentative and potentially off-putting was chosen is beyond me, but let's ignore it and move on.
   The contents: a series of linked stories, written/published here and there, but now brought together to form a portrait of a woman and a small coastal town in Maine.

   The eponymous Olive Kitteridge is a maths teacher in the local school. Along with her affable, gentle husband Henry and 'difficult' son Christopher, she features in some stories and appears in the margins of others, all of them depicting or referring to life in the town over a period of thirty or so years. What makes the book so compelling  - for despite its episodic nature it is - is the clinical precision with which Elizabeth Strout dissects her characters, exposing their flaws, their hidden, inner lives, their hopes and disappointments. As such, this is not a comfortable read because it's all too real and human, but it's a fine book, and one which shows a keen and perceptive understanding of what motivates and moves us, particularly as we age. It's the older Olive who figures most often, a person (to paraphrase Miss Brodie) of insight and instinct, but also of penetrating glance and caustic tongue. She's not an Everywoman, but she's an effective lens through which to examine relationships and singularity, expectations and disconnections. We may not like Olive, but we feel for her at times as if for ourselves.

Comments

[Claire]

I've been wanting to read this book and after reading your review I think I'll borrow it from the library next month.

[rubyredbooks]

I borrowed a copy of this novel from the library before it won the Pulitzer and even then thought the writing really wonderful. Unfortunately I had to return it before I had finished it and now I am ruing my decision not to get the hardback version there and then because as "we" have said here on your blog, that paperback cover is truly ridiculous :-)

[Lisa]

I absolutely loved this book. The cover is unfortunate, but hopefully that won't turn anyone away. Olive is the kind of person that infuriates you, but at the same time, you feel for her very deeply. In other words, she is human. I liked all the stories, but the ones I liked best had Olive front and center.

[Juxtabook]

I will take you word for it and not be put off by the cover. Do you think a blogger's pact not to review any book with headless female or female limb (espeically bare feet, arms or backs "tastefully" drapped with flowing fabric) would have any effect on this dreadful rash of covers? They slam them on anything remotely connected to women. Poor Fiona Robyn's books have some awful covers and the Maggie Dana one is dreadful too.

[Linda C]

This is one of the few times that the USA cover is far better than the UK cover which I find appalling.
USA cover can be seen at Amazon.com. It is somewhat bland, but at least it is not awful.
As for the book, I recognized much of myself in it (and in Olive).

Linda C.

[litlove]

I absolutely agree about the cover - I felt very misled by it. I also thought this was wonderful writing but I couldn't quite finish it. It was so depressing in parts and I wished I'd liked Olive more than I did. Or maybe it's better to say 'appreciated' her, as Strout doesn't intend for us to find her straightforwardly sympathetic. It was one of those books I felt I should have read at a different time, when I was more in the mood for it, or at least when forewarned as to how dark it is. But it IS beautiful writing.

[Margaret Powling]

After all the headless women, back views, feet, high heels, none of which I particularly like, I think the cover of the latest Katharine McMahon novel, The Crimson Rooms, is a delight (as it the novel.)Needless to say it shows an elegant woman in a crimson dress, and you can see her face!

[Simon S]

I really, really want to read this, as I have heard such a mixture of reviews and thoughts about this book and I find it all really intriguing! I like the ideas of short stories summing up someones live if that makes sense?

[pamela]

I loved this book. I must say that this particular cover is rather amusing to me, as it really has nothing to do with the book at all. Wonder whose idea that was??