Olive said, “I don't think I can explain this well. But you go through life and you think you're something. Not in a good way, and not in a bad way. But you think you are something. And then you see” – and Olive shrugged in the direction of the girl who had served the coffee – “that you no longer are anything. To a waitress with a huge hind end, you’ve become invisible. And it’s freeing.”
Having loved Olive Kitteridge, I was super excited that the titular character would be making another appearance in Olive, Again; and while I may not have loved this sequel, it still had many many fine moments that left me by turns contemplative and touched. The honest-to-a-fault Mrs. Kitteridge is now negotiating her seventies and eighties, and as the widow gains a new love and comes to terms with what a lousy wife and mother she had always been, we witness moments of joy and sorrow, explore grief and loneliness, and watch as a bulldozing force is tamed by her deteriorating body. In what is essentially a collection of short stories centered in her fictional community of Crosby, Maine, author Elizabeth Strout, once again, demonstrates that she understands the human heart – and more importantly, can reveal it in prose. Plot details may not always be totally credible, but there is essential truth to be found in every story. I'd still say I loved this read, I just won't put it in italics.
Many of these stories revolve around family secrets and dynamics; there are deaths and infidelities and several characters who have idealised former spouses (whether dead or divorced). Olive Kitteridge doesn't feature in every story – sometimes, she's just a passing stranger on the sidewalk; yet never invisible – but when she does appear, she is often asking people to describe their lives to her (whether it's a young mother who might die of her cancer, a Somali-American nurse's aide, a former Poet Laureate, or a fellow resident at a nursing home whose life had been very different from Olive's, she is always pressing people to tell her their stories). It's obvious that as Olive approaches the end of her own life, she is trying to come to some sort of personal philosophy, and it is sad-but-true that this know-it-all buttinsky concludes, “I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.” Other characters, however, do shed some light on the meaning of it all, and these are some of the book's strongest moments. In Helped, a young woman who just lost her father in a terrible accident has a profound discussion with her father's lawyer, and shares her philosophy on the existence of God:
“You know what, Bernie? I've thought about this a lot. A lot. And here is the – well, the phrase I've come up with. I mean just for myself, but this is the phrase that goes through my head. I think our job – maybe even our duty – is to –” Her voice became calm, adultlike. “To bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.”Exiles revisits the characters from The Burgess Boys, and after an uncomfortable visit between brothers and their unfriendly spouses, one of them concludes:
It came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect.Much is made of class: there are several missing fathers, leaving single mothers who struggle to get by; characters compare the size of their childhood homes as though that would explain the trajectory of their lives; a Unitarian minister is so liberal that she just can't bring herself to like her rich sister-in-law; Olive is so dedicated to her role as an anti-snob that she refuses the comforts her rich new husband can offer her. Olive is such a liberal that she is surprised to eventually discover a common humanity with the kind of woman who would support “that horrible orange-haired man who was president” in Heart:
For Betty to have carried in her heart this love for Jerry Skyler, what did it mean? It was to be taken seriously, Olive saw this. All love was to be taken seriously, including her own brief love for her doctor. But Betty had kept this love close to her heart for years and years; she had needed it that much. Olive finally said, leaning forward in her chair, “Here's what I think, young lady. I think you're doin' excellent.” Then she sat back. What a thing love was. Olive felt it for Betty, even with that bumper sticker on her truck.Again, the joys in this book were to be found in little moments of truth – things that made me think and things that made me feel – and it was a pleasure end to end.
