Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge is a retired schoolteacher in Crosby, Maine, a small town she watches with disapproval. She dislikes the changes she sees there and in the wider world. She is stern at times and patient at others, sharp-eyed about some people and stubbornly blind about others.

The book circles the people around her. A lounge musician is haunted by an old love. A former student has lost the will to live. Her grown child feels tyrannized by Olive's irrational sensitivities.

Then there is her husband, Henry, who finds that his loyalty to the marriage is both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople deal with troubles that range from mild to dire, Olive comes to understand herself and her life better. The understanding is sometimes painful, and she reaches it with ruthless honesty. The book looks at conflict, tragedy and joy, and at the endurance a life demands.

This is literary fiction with a character-driven, sober tone, built around one difficult woman and the lives that touch hers. It won the Pulitzer Prize and is the first novel to feature Olive. It was adapted into an HBO miniseries.