RaveThe Washington PostWhat you begin to realize, as these carefully crafted, individual pieces accumulate, is that together they shape the arc of a narrative, and that the narrative is nothing less than the whole of Olive Kitteridge's life. A novel, yes, in stories … As the 13 stories unfold – each one taking its time, thick with the well-observed details of ordinary lives and the nakedness of inner minds – Olive is revealed to us as a woman wounded, as well as wounding … There are glimmers of warmth, of human connection, in even the darkest of these stories. Strout's benevolence toward her characters forms a slender bridge between heartbreak and hope, a dimly glimpsed path through minefields of despair.
