One of my heroes is Elizabeth Strout, for a few reasons.
*When Strout was struggling to launch her writing career, she became a stand-up comic. She did this although it was terrifying. And the reason: She felt there was something facile or glib in her fiction. She wanted to feel that she was telling the absolute truth--capturing life as it really is. And stand-up comics need to do this, if they're going to be successful. A Comedy Cellar audience won't tolerate bull-shit. This is how Strout trained.
*It doesn't seem all that common to write "sequels" in the world of literary fiction, although Philip Roth did it. I admire Stout's weird career--how she returned to Lucy Barton after everyone thought she was finished with Lucy Barton. And it looks like we'll be getting a sequel to "Olive Kitteridge" next year.
*Another contrarian streak: It's not all that common to write a "novel in stories." But why not? I love the way that Olive pops in and out of "Kitteridge"--how she is sometimes a star and sometimes a supporting player. There's something willful, and strange, and liberating, about Strout's approach to storytelling.
*A book is nothing without great characters, and Strout gives herself permission to dig deep into mental illness. The number of suicides, *pondered* suicides, murders, *pondered* murders, acts of self-cutting, and eating disorders in "Kitteridge" seems sky-high. It seems almost absurd. (But maybe that's how the world really is?) Anyway, Strout allowed herself to be as Gothic as she wished to be, and since she writes with conviction, you're happy to take the journey with her.
*A last thing I love about Strout: She brings the character of Olive into the "reader's guide." Olive gets an "interview." This seems a bit tacky and hokey--but again, there's a sense of Strout saying, Who cares what other people think? I find this very refreshing!
*When Strout was struggling to launch her writing career, she became a stand-up comic. She did this although it was terrifying. And the reason: She felt there was something facile or glib in her fiction. She wanted to feel that she was telling the absolute truth--capturing life as it really is. And stand-up comics need to do this, if they're going to be successful. A Comedy Cellar audience won't tolerate bull-shit. This is how Strout trained.
*It doesn't seem all that common to write "sequels" in the world of literary fiction, although Philip Roth did it. I admire Stout's weird career--how she returned to Lucy Barton after everyone thought she was finished with Lucy Barton. And it looks like we'll be getting a sequel to "Olive Kitteridge" next year.
*Another contrarian streak: It's not all that common to write a "novel in stories." But why not? I love the way that Olive pops in and out of "Kitteridge"--how she is sometimes a star and sometimes a supporting player. There's something willful, and strange, and liberating, about Strout's approach to storytelling.
*A book is nothing without great characters, and Strout gives herself permission to dig deep into mental illness. The number of suicides, *pondered* suicides, murders, *pondered* murders, acts of self-cutting, and eating disorders in "Kitteridge" seems sky-high. It seems almost absurd. (But maybe that's how the world really is?) Anyway, Strout allowed herself to be as Gothic as she wished to be, and since she writes with conviction, you're happy to take the journey with her.
*A last thing I love about Strout: She brings the character of Olive into the "reader's guide." Olive gets an "interview." This seems a bit tacky and hokey--but again, there's a sense of Strout saying, Who cares what other people think? I find this very refreshing!
P.S. Though Strout never seems bent on "comforting" the reader--and many of her stories "end sad"--there's something paradoxically soothing about seeing these characters in pain. Watching people cope--with ordinary and exotic issues--can be a "healing" experience. The theme of "Kitteridge" is a struggle between the dark and light in life: We see this when Olive ponders planting tulips, or not, before the ground freezes. (Maybe a way of alluding to Demeter and Persephone. Olive can look forward to tulips, or she can freeze, with the ground; she can end it all. This is the dramatic question that is really on her mind.) Strout doesn't suggest that the world is a very friendly place--but she writes with a consistent sense of wonder. And that's a kind of buoy, for the reader.
P.P.S. I feel like so many stories we're fed give us a protagonist who is young and easy to like. And Olive is neither one of those things. Another small way in which Strout is saying: "I will do whatever I want, thanks!"
P.P.S. I feel like so many stories we're fed give us a protagonist who is young and easy to like. And Olive is neither one of those things. Another small way in which Strout is saying: "I will do whatever I want, thanks!"
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