Two strong stores in Olive, Again

One of the shortest stories in Elizabeth Strout's latest collection (Olive, Again, 2019), The Walk, is one of the strongest as well, closely following a man who takes a walk through his town (the fictional coastal town of Casby, Maine, the setting for all of the stories in this collection and in its predecessor) as he ponders various moments and troubles in his life. In particular, he thinks of a very beautiful and intelligent girl in his high-school class, who befriended him, to his wonder, and with whom he shared many long conversations, though nothing more than that. She went off to college (Vassar); college was never part of his life plan, and he married his h.s. girlfriend and has had a long career first at a local mill, now defunct, later at an outdoors-clothing/sporting goods store (sound familiar?). He learned a few years after h.s. that his friend had committed suicide and that she was a victim of abuse at home (her father, a physician). This is a powerful revelation, though it stretches credibility - one would think he and others would detect some signs of her disturbance, but, OK, I'll accept it as is. Later in his walk he discovers a man nearly unconscious - whom he recognizes (Casby is a small town) and whom he saves. By the end of the night-time walk this man recognizes something about the sadness of his own life. Note that Strout shoehorns Olive (Kitteridge) into this story - the walking man has a brief recollection of something Mrs. K said back in h.s. days; I appreciate that ES is playing up her most successful and famous character, but let's be honest - her presence does nothing for this story. Another strong story in this collection, Light, is very much about Olive (and not so much about Casby, Maine - it's a story that could take place pretty much anywhere), showing another aspect to her personality and she spends time w/ a former student now in her 40s or so, in the last stages of chemotherapy; Olive as it turns out is one of the few people to visit this woman, with most of her family and friends afraid to confront an image of death; Olive's acerbic and no-nonsense personality serve her well here, as she has no trouble visiting this woman and talking w/ her honestly about matters of life and death. ES has a lot of fun w/ Olive, or at times at O's expense - there's a bit too much of her folksy ways (Yuh; Godfrey Daniels - phrases like that) but overall the more she's present in these stories the better.