Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge is centered on Olive, a retired schoolteacher who observes and often resents the changes in her small seaside town of Crosby, Maine. She is sometimes stern, sometimes patient, perceptive at times and in sad denial at others, and her relationships with neighbors and family reveal strains and misunderstandings. The book follows episodes where townspeople confront personal crises—a lounge musician haunted by a past romance, a former student who has lost the will to live, and Olive’s adult child who feels tyrannized by Olive’s sensitivities—while Olive and her husband Henry navigate the costs and consolations of a long marriage, with Olive coming to deeper self-understanding at times painfully and with ruthless honesty.