Book Review: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

It's important that we all know exactly what winning a Pulitzer Prize means; it means more than just writing a really good book.  According to the Pulitzer Prize Board, Olive Kitteridge was 2009's most "distinguished fiction by an American author dealing with American life."  I could probably end my review there as I can't think of a better description of this book. 

This is a collection of 13 (sometimes tangentially) connected stories about a woman named Olive and her friends, family and neighbors in the coastal town of Crosby, Maine.  Olive is a retired school teacher whose abrasive, sometimes crass, personality is often misunderstood.  But her gruff carriage is her charm:

"Oh, for God's sake."  Olive stopped walking, looked at him through her sunglasses.  "I didn't say moron.  You mean because we have a cowboy for a president?  Or before that an actor who played a cowboy?  Let me tell you, that idiot ex-cocaine-addict was never a cowboy.  He can wear all the cowboy hats he wants.  He's a  spoiled brat to the manor born.  And he makes me puke."
She was really riled, and it took her a moment to see that he was looking away, his expression closed off, as though inside his head he had backed away, just waiting for her to finish.
"God," she said finally.  "You didn't."
"Didn't what?"
"You voted for him."
Jack Kennison looked tired.
"You voted for him.  You, Mr. Harvard, Mr. Brains.  You voted for that stinker."
He gave a small bark of a laugh.  "My God, you do have the passions and the prejudices of a peasant."
"That's it," said Olive.  She began walking, at her pace now.  She said over her shoulder, "At least I'm not prejudiced against homosexuals."
"No," he called.  "Just white men with money."
Damn right, she thought.

The fictional snapshots of Olive's American life are never cliche, they are always shrewd, and by and large subtly heartbreaking.  It's beautiful, this American life.