by Elizabeth Strout
Having loved Olive Kitteridge I could not miss this book, Olive Again, although it meant missing book group. Strout has mastered telling a series of stories linked by a character who is not a lead in every tale–not a collection of short stories, not quite a novel, but something rich and absorbing that I cannot resist. I’m so glad Kindle analytics suggested this book to me, or I might have missed it.
In these long weeks of isolation, a story of an isolated old woman gave voice to emotions that many of us might share, no matter our age, gender, circumstance. Although I am a few decades younger than Olive, I certainly appreciate her sense of growing old and more invisible. I’d heard older women speak of this phenomena, but until you live through it, you don’t really understand how dehumanizing it can be.
You thought? You become an afterthought. I so wanted to know how Olive resolved relationships, her own reputation with people in the town, her sense of self and place. Her interactions with different characters–a new husband, a home health aide, a poet, an old friend–each lead Olive to some sense of self, but no sense of her life.
Unfortunately I borrowed this book from the library on Kindle and my notes–the passages I so loved!–vanished when it was reabsorbed. They had to do with isolation, light, and love. I may try to find them, or hope that someone reads this short review and remembers them, or underlined them and points me to them.
I’m not sure I’d want to have a chat with Olive, but reading this book leaves one in a conversation that lingers.