The world embraces Olive

Seldom has a book of (linked) short stories been as anticipated and as welcomed as Elizabeth Strout's Olive, Again, which continues the life story of the greatest of grumps, Olive Kitteredge. Whether or not ES knew from the start that she would resurrect her most famous character is irrelevant - as the tv miniseries on O made her return inevitable. And it's virtually impossible now to read of Olive without picturing has as embodied by Frances McDiormand. In any event from my first dive into O Again we seen right away that the writing is clear and accessible and if there's a flaw it may be that ES too readily plays up the comic side of O's misanthropy. Oddly, O does not appear in the first chapter/story, which centers on her late-life love partner George, a gruff curmudgeon himself (I don't find him credible as a retired Harvard professor, but it's too late for ES to walk that back). But when O enters the picture in chapter 2 she's immediately recognizable - and funny: eg she's at a baby shower and realizes that she never thought to bring a gift. Who does that? And she spends most of the time criticizing (to herself) everyone else's gift- until she notices that one of the guests is in distress and she in her bossy way gets the young woman - 8+ months pregnant - into her car where she delivers the baby. No nonsense, no sentimentality- and probably poised on the runway for takeoff into season 2 of the miniseries.

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