The Pulitzer Makes The List - But Barely: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

You knew the Pulitzer would have to make an appearance on the list at some point. I enjoyed this year's winner for fiction enough to place it among my favorites from the year.

Critically I will say this: The book is convenient. There is enough of a youthful return to simplicity to hearten any hipster's soul and enough apple pie to invigorate each and every foodie's fiction tooth. I think you can read between those lines.

Then I have to get out and drink. All this accounting work is stressing out the old boy.


Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Fiction. Trade Paperback. $14. Click on the book above to purchase and support the Devil's Accountant.

Olive Kitteridge is set in a small coastal town in northern Maine. Maine is perhaps one of the Union’s more quirky states, with a wonderful collection of exaggerated colloquialisms, regional foods and a way of life that is largely reminiscent of a mainstream America of yesteryear. It is also one of the nation’s most depressed economies and small town life in Maine is often, to borrow a term favored (perhaps belabored) by Vice President Joe Biden, “hardscrabble.”

The novel is formatted as a collection of interconnected short stories, each with its own individual story arc and characters. These stories and characters are connected by place but not necessarily by time, as the novel deftly changes both time and scene throughout. They are also connected by the book’s lead character (and she is a character), Olive Kitteridge.

In some of the stories Olive is merely mentioned. Others find her in the role of protagonist, filling page after page with her larger than life persona. At other times she merely inhabits some other character’s story, at moments stealing their thunder with a sassy comment issued from over stewing apples or while weeding her garden.

Here's where I come in with my comment. Olive Kitteridge is a very enjoyable, breezy read. Nearly every story slides towards ominous tidings and yet it never ascends to tragedy. The reason? Everyone is vested with a supreme confidence and inborn talent. They are, in short, very nostalgically American.

As Strout paints pictures of a difficult existence she consistently invests her characters with incredible native abilities that allow them to persevere where an average or (oh no - he won't say it!) less than average person would find themselves overwhelmed.

This sounds elitist, but I honestly think it has more to do with realism than any snobbery. Not everyone is vested with the mental toughness or intelligence to endure extreme or repeated hardships. And that's fine. It's okay. Really. It is.

There is a trend in American fiction to write of the everyman's struggles. Poverty and issues more particularly extreme (cancer, heart disease) are rendered plain upon the page and in some cases the reader is allowed to learn of dire existences they would never have experienced as closely otherwise. This is the power of fiction and one of Olive Kitteridge's strengths as a novel.

It suffers however from another trend I am seeing in American fiction. It is a celebratory trumpeting of the abilities of the common man. When I am not blogging I am a blue collar worker. I work in the garden industry. Unloading Christmas trees and unsleeving mile upon mile of poinsettias. When the body and mind go numb, there is no upbuilding. You just go home and dig out the coldest beer you have in the fridge.

Something I need to go do now, in fact.

Basically my complaint is that in a work of realism, which Olive Kitteridge is, not everyone can be vested with the powers of the hero. Strout's novel is very good but a little too full of indomitable heroes.

Boy. I really do need to get a drink.

Signing off.

-Grumpy Accountant