Must All Award Winners Be Downbeat??????????????

                                            Girls, I am telling you, that is the first thing I wondered about, while reading Elizabeth Strout's otherwise wonderfully written novel.  It may be  that some sad events of people I know around me which have taken place may have colored my experience of this book, whose final sentence, after all is said and done, leaves one an affirmative note.  It also made me realize how much domestic fiction--be it print, stage or screen--boils down to essentially a reworking or Tolstoy's classic opening sentence about families in "Anna Karenina."

                                               "Olive Kitteridge" uses a format I don't like--the novel as short story; that is, a series of short stories about the characters of Crosby, Maine, being connected by the presence of Olive in them.  It is more highbrow than, say, Grace Metalious, but it touches upon feelings common to many--the idea that one's neighbors, whose going on we really don't know, may seem, up front, to have it all, but, when it comes right down to it, they are as struggling as much as you or I.

                                                    A simple idea, but one Strout takes and works with well.  Olive Kitteridge is a prickly sort of character; were she still alive, I kept picturing the great Maureen Stapleton portraying her.  This prickliness may not endear Olive to readers, may keep others, like me, at a distance, before getting deeper into the book, when you discover that, for all her annoying qualities, Olive is a caring person, with very fine toned feelings.

                                                      My favorite character, outside of Olive, was town bar pianist, Angie O'Meara, whose mixture of sass and sadness, and tragedy she masks, had me wishing there had been more of  her, or what someone, like, say, Tennessee Williams, would have done with such a woman.

                                                        But, if she had been dealt with by Williams, she would not have had Strout's style. Along with tying in domestic themes, Strout manages, through character and situation, to touch upon all stages of Life--from birth, to death.

                                                          "Olive Kitteridge" is truly a novel about the present day human condition in American, and for those of you dealing with aspects of it yourselves, it can be a sobering reading experience. But, like I said, it ends on an affirming note, which has me believing Elizabeth Strout's intention, rather than depress the reader, was to champion the human spirit, and the individual's capacity for strength. On that, she succeeds very well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!