“Olive, Again is a tour de force. With extraordinary economy of prose – few writers can pack so much emotion, so much detail into a single paragraph – Strout immerses us in the lives of her characters, each so authentically drawn as to be deserving of an entire novel themselves. Compassionate, masterly and profound, this is a writer at the height of her powers”
Hannah Beckerman, “Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout review – a moving tour de force,” The Guardian, November 3, 2019.“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.
“They’re two of the most decorated women in modern American letters: Elizabeth Strout, the Pulitzer Prize-winning maestro of Maine … and Ann Patchett, whose lauded catalog includes the best-sellers Bel Canto and Commonwealth.
But on a bright fall morning in New York, they were just two old friends catching up to talk about their latest works — Olive, Againand The Dutch House, respectively — what they’re reading, and why you won’t find them on Instagram.”
Leah Greenblatt, “Master Class: EW puts Ann Patchett and Elizabeth Strout in conversation,” Entertainment Weekly, October 15, 2019.“The sense of community that pervades Strout’s writing feels even more expansive when her novels converge, when the various Maines she has depicted with exquisite specificity turn out to be the same. It’s as if Strout is telling her readers that her mission in writing these books has been singular: to portray in luminous detail the messy, secretive, consequential lives of people in a small town.”
Jonathan Vatner, “Aging Gently, Messily: On Elizabeth Strout’s ‘Olive, Again’,” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 16, 2019.“It is precisely the complicated mixture of emotions she inspires that makes Olive such an endlessly fascinating and irresistibly endearing heroine. “Olive, Again” is bleaker, sadder, more achingly beautiful than its predecessor, and a magnificent achievement on its own terms.”
Priscilla Gilman, “In ‘Olive, Again,’ Elizabeth Strout’s beloved character gets better with age,” Boston Globe, October 10, 2019.Sign up for Elizabeth’s newsletter, with exclusive content from Elizabeth to her readers.