“There is a moment in Olive, Again, the eagerly awaited follow-up to Olive Kitteridge , Elizabeth Strout’s best-seller of 2008, in which the novelist’s virtuosity is on full display. Kitteridge, an elderly widow by now and still living in Maine, spots a former pupil in a diner … and approaches her to revive the connection. In the exchange that follows, one becomes aware of Strout’s sympathetic range…. ‘That was the first story that I wrote for Olive, Again,’ says Strout, cheerfully. ‘She just showed up and I saw her nosing her car into the marina; and I thought: Oh man, she’s back.’ She laughs with pure joy.”
Emma Brockes, "'Oh man, she's back': Elizabeth Strout on the return of Olive Kitteridge," The Guardian, October 19, 2019.