Olive, again by Elizabeth Strout

It's true what they say about improving with age. By the time we get to the Third Age, we've been round the block a few times and we get to know where to pick our fights. This is how it is with Olive Kitteridge. The one-time obstructive, argumentative woman gradually settles down into someone who simply speaks her mind and has the courage to confront anyone's elephant in any room she might find it in.

We first meet Olive in Elizabeth Strout's earlier novel, Olive Kitteridge, and this book picks up the threads and continues to follow Olive with her friends and family as she grumbles her way into old age. The writing is superb in both novels and knowing how much Olive rubbed everyone up the wrong way in the first book, I was pleasantly surprised at how much empathy I felt for her in this one.

As I have entered the foothills of old age myself, there were several moments in the book where I had to stop and think about my own life spanning backwards and forwards. How did parenting go for me? What do my grandchildren think of me? What health issues am I going to have to deal with a little further down the line? The genius in the construction of this book is the amount of big moral issues that are raised for debate through Olive pushing herself into situations, and then taking a view that throws convention to the wind.

I strongly recommend that you leave this book well alone until you have read the first one. You will not be disappointed.

Comments

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