Author Spotlight: Elizabeth Strout

Long-time followers of this blog will have read several reviews of the fiction of Elizabeth Strout over the past eight years. In this post, I offer an overview of all of her books, focusing on the two main strands: books about the character Olive Kitteridge and books about the character Lucy Barton. I include a new review of Strout’s 2024 novel, Tell Me Everything, in which these two strands are braided together.

In my opinion, you can read anything by Elizabeth Strout and you won’t be disappointed. But for maximum enjoyment of the character development, read in the order of publication.

THE OLIVE KITTERIDGE BOOKS

Olive Kitteridge  (2008)  In a Pulitzer-winning collection of linked short stories, Strout introduced an indomitable retired schoolteacher from the fictional rural town of Crosby, Maine. This book was turned into a four-part HBO miniseries in 2014.

Olive, Again  (2019)  The sequel to Olive Kitteridge comes in the form of thirteen more stories that unpeel life in small-town New England. The cranky, candid Olive, who weaves in and out of the tales, is sometimes intolerant but often kind. When her kindness is awkwardly expressed and causes offense, she’s surprised, and she tries to rectify her behavior. The other characters in Olive, Again are townspeople whom Olive interacts with in some way. Their lives are intertwined with each other and with the inevitable sadnesses and transgressions and occasional triumphs of living on this Earth. The surroundings of the town can reflect the despair of the inhabitants, yet it’s not all bleakness. Strout's characters can also connect with the natural world in a way that lifts their spirits, if only briefly.

Three other novels by Strout have characters connected to Olive Kitteridge or rural Maine:  Amy and Isabelle (1998), Abide with Me (2006), and The Burgess Boys (2013).

THE LUCY BARTON BOOKS

My Name is Lucy Barton  (2016)  The titular Lucy is a writer in New York City in the 1980s, with a husband and two young daughters. When Lucy is hospitalized for many weeks with a mysterious illness, her estranged mother travels from Illinois to her bedside. The two women reach an uneasy peace with each other, especially as they tell stories about the folks back home, in the (fictional) Amgash, the depressed rural town where Lucy grew up in extreme poverty.

Anything Is Possible  (2017)  In these linked short stories, the character Lucy Barton has become an acclaimed writer. Chicago is one of the stops on Lucy’s book-promotion tour, so she visits her home town of Amgash, Illinois, to see her siblings. We get much more detail about the childhood suffering of the Barton kids—details that were glossed over and somewhat sanitized in My Name is Lucy Barton. Strout toys with the vagaries of memory in both books, and the power of money emerges as another theme. Lucy has lived the up-by-her-bootstraps version of the American dream—getting into college and building a successful career. Others in her small town remain impoverished, with their share of miseries, including sexual abuse and mental illness. The prose is this book is spare, with every word well chosen. The emotions are raw but presented with subtle empathy.

Oh William! (2021) is another book in the Lucy Barton series, about Lucy’s first husband, whom she reconnects with after the death of her second husband.

Lucy by the Sea  (2022)  In this novel, it’s now early March 2020, and Lucy’s ex-husband, William, insists that they leave New York City for a rental house on the coast of Maine. (He’s a scientist who recognizes how dangerous the coronavirus is.) This town in Maine happens to be Crosby, where the character Olive Kitteridge, from Strout’s other books, lives. In first-person narrative, Lucy details the interactions she has with some of the residents of Crosby during 2020 and early 2021. Strout excels in examining the complexities of the human condition, and Lucy by the Sea is the first discussion of the pandemic I’ve read that truly captures the sense of desperation and loneliness that the pandemic wrought.

OLIVE FINALLY MEETS LUCY!

Tell Me Everything  (2024)  We’re back in Crosby, Maine, in 2022-2023, and Strout’s two strong female characters, Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton, come face to face at last. Olive, now in an assisted living facility, regales Lucy with odd tales from her long life. Meanwhile, attorney Bob Burgess (from Strout’s 2013 novel The Burgess Boys) agrees to represent a local man who is suspected of murdering his mother. This murder mystery threads through the book and involves even more characters from Strout’s previous fiction. Some national reviewers of Tell Me Everything have complained that it’s rambling and unfocused. I disagree. I took it as a genre-cross between a novel and a collection of short stories and found it so riveting that I read it in one long afternoon. The clear theme is enunciated on page 292: “’What is the point of anyone’s life?’” Strout challenges her readers to think hard on this question.

From the Top 100, Part One

The New York Times has issued a list of 100 books that are considered by many literary authorities to be the best that have been published since the year 2000. I had read several of the titles before I started this blog in 2017, so they don’t appear in my archive of reviews. But I can recommend them heartily.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) by Michael Chabon transports readers to mid-20th-century New York with a pair of successful creators of comics. This novel was a Pulitzer Prize winner, but everything Chabon produces is golden. I reviewed one of his later books, Moonglow, here.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001) by Barbara Ehrenreich is a hard-hitting nonfiction look at poverty in the United States. The issues haven’t gone away in the past two decades.  

Middlesex (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides is a Pulitzer Prize fiction winner that explored complex gender issues long before the broader society began to. It’s well-plotted, with highly relatable characters.

Olive Kittredge (2008) by Elizabeth Strout, a series of linked short stories about the indomitable Maine-dwelling Olive, also won the Pulitzer Prize. Click here to read my review of the sequel, Olive, Again. Strout captures family and community dynamics like no one else.

Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012) by Hilary Mantel vividly portray the turbulent reign of Britain’s Henry VIII. I preferred Wolf Hall over its more violent sequel, but these two justifiably top the lists of historical fiction. Both books won the Booker prize, among other honors.

In my next post, I’ll revisit some of the 21st-century novels from that New York Times list that I’ve reviewed on this blog.  

Boomer Tales

If the Baby Boomer generation (born 1946-1964) is not a demographic that interests you, feel free to skip to another post. But if you want to dive deep into the emotional territory of aging, here are some tales for you. Remember, we all become elderly eventually!

First up, a new review of a recent book by a seasoned and reliable author.

Baumgartner     Paul Auster     (2023)  The title character of this short novel is a seventy-something philosophy professor who, at the beginning of the book, is just about to retire from teaching at Princeton. Baumgartner’s wife has been dead for a decade, but he revisits his life with her through dreams, reminiscences, and perusal of the journals and poems that she left behind. Sensing the precarity of old age, he seeks to make the most of his time, continuing to write scholarly books and pursuing various romantic relationships. At the risk of revealing a spoiler, I’ll tell you that that ending is disturbing and not at all what you might expect. (For a review of another Auster novel, 4321, click here.)

Next, recaps of a few of my many reviews over the past seven years that feature elderly characters.

Our Souls at Night     Kent Haruf     (2015)  A widow and a widower, neighbors in a small Midwestern town, carve out their own version of happiness in spite of setbacks. Readers can tuck this story away as a tutorial in how to cope with the inevitability of mortality. (The 2017 movie of the same name starred Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.) Click here for my full review.

Olive, Again     Elizabeth Strout     (2019)  In thirteen linked short stories, the incomparable author Strout revisits Olive Kittredge, a character from her previous fiction. Olive, still living in rural Maine, is retired and declining in health, but she connects with other quirky characters as she fearlessly faces her future. Click here for my full review.

Midwinter Break     Bernard MacLaverty     (2017)  A couple in their seventies who live in Scotland take a short vacation to Amsterdam in this masterful study of the pleasures and trials of a very long marriage. Click here for my full review.

Henry, Himself     Stewart O’Nan     (2019)  This is a quiet, introspective portrait of a year in the life of Henry Maxwell, a retired engineer who lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Emily. The novelist is able to turn everyday events into drama that drives his narrative in a highly effective way. Click here for my full review.

The Sense of an Ending     Julian Barnes     (2011)  Tony Webster, a retired Briton who is amicably divorced, receives an unusual legacy that brings to mind painful scenes from his time in secondary school and at university. This ruminative short novel about memory, regret, forgiveness, and revenge was made into a movie in 2017.

Violeta     Isabel Allende     (2022)  Translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle. The fictional Violeta Del Valle tells her captivating life story in first person, from her birth in 1920 during one pandemic to her death in 2020 during another pandemic. The backdrop is the political upheaval in the history of an unnamed South American country that is very much like Chile.

Contemporary Novels by Reliable Authors

Lucy by the Sea     Elizabeth Strout     (2022)  Pulitzer-winner Strout has helped her readers examine many of the complexities of the human condition in her eight previous highly acclaimed books. Now, in Lucy by the Sea, she looks at the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, through the eyes of Lucy Barton (a character she’s developed in My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything is Possible, and Oh William). Lucy’s ex-husband, William, is a scientist who sees how dangerous the coronavirus is. In early March 2020, he insists that Lucy leave New York City for a rental house on the coast of Maine. In first-person narrative, Lucy details the interactions she has with family and friends during 2020 and early 2021. Lucy by the Sea is the first discussion of the pandemic I’ve read that truly captures the sense of desperation and loneliness that the pandemic has wrought. One quote: “I could not stop feeling that life as I had known it was gone.” (245)

The Master Bedroom     Tessa Hadley     (2007)  Kate Flynn is brilliant, brash, and beautiful—never boring. She takes a leave from her teaching job in London and goes back to her home town in Wales to care for her elderly mother, who has dementia. Kate’s entanglement in the lives of old friends allows the author to explore the complexities of desire, ambition, and generational ties. I’ve been bingeing on the well-crafted books by Britain’s Tessa Hadley; they are among my favorites, as you can see in this recent post.

The Sweet Remnants of Summer     Alexander McCall Smith     (2022)  In this 14th offering in the Isabel Dalhousie series, it’s a warm September in Edinburgh. Isabel and her “dishy” husband, Jamie, get themselves involved as mediators—or possibly interveners—in two interpersonal dramas in the worlds of art, music, and wine. Glimpses of Isabel’s personal life, and of her job as editor of a philosophy journal, punctuate the gentle, easygoing story. I’ve reviewed novels in this series previously. The setting and the characters rank high for me in McCall Smith’s voluminous catalog of titles.