Elizabeth Strout: “There are very few people in the world like Olive Kitteridge”
Elizabeth Strout tells Katie Law about her eponymous heroine’s comeback in Olive, Again, how lockdown has slowed her down and why she believes in love at first sight
This is part of the problem – there seems to be no typical day for me anymore. We are in Maine for the duration of this, we have given up our place in New York, and so that has been a big adjustment. I have a studio in town over the bookstore but I don’t get there every day. When I do, I can only work for a few hours, and before I could work on and off for the whole day. So each day is different, according to the weather. And my husband cooks dinner every night and I clean up, and that is always nice. And we would watch the news at night because of the upcoming election, but now that the election has occurred I don’t want to watch the news as much anymore.
You are a great listener. Is listening an underrated activity?
Listening is essential, it really is. And I have come to slowly realize that many people are not good listeners. This is really too bad, because curiosity is at the heart of listening well, and curiosity is so important, I think. I miss this about not being in New York. In New York there were endless people to listen to on the city bus, or on the subway, or in the elevator in the building; people were everywhere, and I love people; there is nothing more interesting to me than people.
What are you reading at the moment ?
I am reading Savage Beauty, by Nancy Mitford, about the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I had read it before, but I picked it up recently and found it fascinating all over again. I am also reading a biography of Berenice Abbott, by Julia Van Haaften. This is because my husband was reading it and talking to me about it, so I got interested and picked it up myself.
How did you meet your husband?
I met my husband (he is my second husband) eleven years ago at an event I was doing in New York City at Symphony Space. He asked me a question, and I could not see him because of the lights, I just heard a large clear voice saying that he comes from Maine, and he knows all the people in my book, and – I cut him off and said, Where in Maine do you come from? And he told me, and it made me realize, Oh, he really does come from Maine and he admits to that town! (The town is kind of a sad town; it’s the town that Stephen King went to high school in.)
It turned out he had gotten the last ticket to the event, and he was the first person in line when I went to sign books, and I thought he was just lovely. He had been the Attorney General of Maine for ten years, and was now teaching at Columbia in New York. It was love at first sight. It was.
How do you feel about the US presidential election result?
I am devastated by the election results in the United States. I was horrified to find out that Trump had as many supporters as he does. It really frightens me. And I do not think he will go without a huge fight.
Read our exclusive extract from Olive, Again:
It was November.
No snow had fallen yet in Crosby, Maine, and because the sun was out on this particular Wednesday there was a kind of horrifying beauty to the world: The oak trees held their leaves, golden and shrivelled, and the evergreens stood at attention as though cold, but the other trees were bare and dark- limbed, stretching into the sky with dwindling spikiness, and the roads were bare, and the fields were swept clean- looking, everything sort of ghastly and absolutely gorgeous with the sunlight that fell at an angle, never reaching the top of the sky. The sky was a darkish blue.
Jack Kennison suggested to Olive Kitteridge that they take a ride in the car. “Oh, I love rides,” she said, and he said he knew that, he was suggesting a ride to make her happy. “I’m happy,” she said, and he said he was too. So they got into their new Subaru— Olive didn’t care for his sports car— and o they went; they decided to head for Shirley Falls, an hour away, where Olive had gone to high school, and where her first husband, Henry, had come from.
Jack and Olive had been together now for five years; Jack was seventy- nine and Olive seventy- eight. The first months, they had slept holding each other. Neither one of them had held another person in bed all night for years. When Jack had been able to be away with Elaine, they sort of held each other at night in whatever hotel they were in, but it was not the same as what he and Olive did their first months together. Olive would put her leg over both of his, she would put her head on his chest, and during the night they would shift, but always they were holding each other, and Jack thought of their large old bodies, shipwrecked, thrown up upon the shore— and how they held on for dear life!
He would never have imagined it. The Olive- ness of her, the neediness of himself; never in his life would he have imagined that he would spend his final years with such a woman in such a way.
He would never have imagined it. The Olive-ness of her, the neediness of himself; never in his life would he have imagined that he would spend his final years with such a woman in such a way
Olive, Again
It’s that he could be himself with her. This is what he thought during those first number of months with a sleeping, slightly snoring Olive in his arms; this is what he still thought.
She irritated him.
She would not have breakfast, but would get going right away, as if she had things to do. “Olive, you don’t have anything to do,” he would say. And she thumbed her nose at him. Thumbed her nose.
God.
It was not until after they married that he began to understand that her anxiety level was high. She rocked her foot constantly as she sat in her chair, she would suddenly leave the house, saying she had to buy some fabric at the Joann fabric store, and she would be gone within moments. But she still clung to him at night, and he still clung to her. And then after another year they did not cling to each other at night but shared the bed and argued about who had taken the blankets during the night; they were really a married couple. And she had grown increasingly less anxious; quietly, this made Jack feel wonderful.
It was not until after they married that he began to understand that her anxiety level was high. She rocked her foot constantly as she sat in her chair, she would suddenly leave the house, saying she had to buy some fabric at the Joann fabric store, and she would be gone within moments. But she still clung to him at night, and he still clung to her. And then after another year they did not cling to each other at night but shared the bed and argued about who had taken the blankets during the night; they were really a married couple. And she had grown increasingly less anxious; quietly, this made Jack feel wonderful.
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout is out in paperback now (Penguin, £8.99)
