Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009. It's a tremendous book. The characters are so real that I feel sure I have met them before. Strout captures small town life, especially that of Mainers - as far as I've been able to see - perfectly: the speech patterns, the priorities, the gossip, the prejudices, the routines.

The title character is a retired teacher in a small coastal town in Maine. Each chapter is basically a short story told from the perspective of one of several different townspeople (a couple are actually from Olive's point of view, too), and each story gives some insight into Olive's personality and reputation. She's a tartar, a force to be reckoned with, a woman who pulls no punches. Some people hate her, school children fear her, but her husband loves her, and the reader will feel respect and pity and empathy and embarrassment for her. I can't imagine not seeing some part of oneself, even if just a small one, for good or for bad, in Olive Kitteridge.

This book reminded me quite a lot of Empire Falls by Richard Russo, which was also made into a miniseries starring Ed Harris (among many other great actors) a few years ago. Empire Falls is also set in small town Maine and is also full of perfectly drawn characters, although it's far more plot oriented.

Elizabeth Strout has written two other novels, Amy and Isabelle and Abide with Me, and I need to put both of them on my Wish List. I don't even care what they're about. Strout's just that good of a writer that I'm interested in reading them regardless.