Ep 762 - Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

Summary

Overdue Podcast: Ep 762 – Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

Date: August 10, 2026
Hosts: Craig and Andrew

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Craig and Andrew tackle Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, a book known for its unconventional structure—a collection of thirteen interconnected stories centered (mostly) on the formidable, indelibly human character of Olive. The hosts dig into Strout’s background, the book’s critical reception, what makes Olive both endearing and exasperating, and the emotional power of the book’s “story cycle” format. They also scrutinize the ongoing debate: is Olive Kitteridge a novel or a short story collection?

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Elizabeth Strout: Author Background

• Strout’s Roots: Born in 1956, grew up in New England with professor parents (her father a parasitologist, her mother a high school writing teacher).
• Late-blooming Success: Early career setbacks, working as a waitress and (briefly) a lawyer; didn’t publish her debut novel until 1998 (Amy and Isabelle).
• Finding Her Voice: Found success after a stand-up comedy class in NYC, where she learned to write more honestly about her New England identity and roots.

“I was trying to write like a writer, a capital W writer, instead of finding my own voice.” – Andrew paraphrasing Strout (10:27)

• Trajectory: Critical acclaim snowballed with three earlier novels (Amy and Isabelle, Abide With Me, then Olive Kitteridge). Strout’s recurring fictional setting is small-town Maine, with books often interlinking characters across her bibliography.

---

2. Book Overview and Structure

• Recognition: Won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize, inspired an Emmy-winning miniseries starring Frances McDormand.
• Format: Thirteen stories, some published in various magazines from the early ‘90s onward.
• Debate: Novel or Story Collection?
  • Some reviewers and even publishers call it a novel.
  • Wikipedia and others call it a “novel or short story cycle.”

“It is akin to any film that is more a series of vignettes over a character’s life.” – Craig (31:53)

• Characterization: The stories range from ones with Olive as the main character, to others where she is barely present—a bit player, or even just a mythic figure in the background.

---

3. Olive Kitteridge: The Character

• Who is Olive? Middle-aged (later elderly) math teacher in fictional Crosby, Maine; described as tough, blunt, flawed, and magnetic.

“Every review of this book that I’ve read is like, this old battle axe is so full of humanity that you can’t help but like her ... that’s the vibe.” – Andrew (04:13)

• Relatability: Simultaneously repellent and sympathetic; a “piece of work” who oscillates between abrasive straight-shooter and someone capable of surprising empathy.

“The magic of when this book is really cooking, is that you are like, Olive, I would never do that ... but it’s kind of sick that you did it.” – Craig (50:18)

• Family and Small-Town Roots: Drawn heavily from Strout’s mother and her own people-watching upbringing. Olive’s relationships are complicated, especially with her son Christopher.

“She loves her son Christopher, loves him so much. But also recognizes that she ... hasn’t always been the kindest mother perhaps.” – Craig (46:36)

---

4. Story Cycle Analysis & Standout Moments

Structural Highlights

• Stories with Olive as Bit Player: Five stories (e.g., “Ship in a Bottle,” “Criminal,” “Starving,” “Winter Concert”) center on other townsfolk, often only tangentially involving Olive.
• These are sometimes seen as “sprawlier” and less memorable (“...they don’t linger as strongly as the ones where Olive is the main character.” – Craig, 30:12).

Main Olive-Centric Stories

• Pharmacy: Opens from her husband Henry’s point of view—a gentle, likable small-town pharmacist, whose marriage with Olive is subtly hashed out in domestic and emotional terms.

  “The ritual was pleasing ... any unpleasantness that may have occurred back at his home, any uneasiness at the way his wife often left their bed ... receded like a shoreline as he walked through the safety of his pharmacy.” – (41:56)

• Incoming Tide: Follows a suicidal former student; Olive sees him and, through sheer force of character, breaks into his world and pulls him back from the brink.

  “Just by kind of being with him and being the straight shooter that she is.” – Craig (27:39)

• A Little Burst: Olive, humiliated by her new daughter-in-law’s comments, acts out in quiet, chaotic revenge—stealing a bra, a shoe, and defacing a beige sweater.

  “She thinks to herself, it does not help much, but it does help. Some. Know that at least there will be moments now when Suzanne will doubt herself ... Olive, Olive, Olive.” – Craig (49:49) “I’m simultaneously repelled by and also in full agreement with this behavior.” – Andrew (50:06)

• Tulips: After Henry’s stroke, Olive’s interactions with the ostracized Louise Larkin—whose son is a murderer—bring pointed, uncomfortable insights about pain, loneliness, and judgment.

  “She is there to get, like, schadenfreude ... and Hannibal Lecter is like, yeah, that’s why you came here. And it sucks. I could peer into your soul and you’re here for the wrong reasons.” – Craig, (58:04)

• Security: Olive visits her son in post-9/11 New York, feels out of place, and triggers a family meltdown over misunderstandings both petty and profound.

  “They saw me with the ice cream on my shirt. They knew I looked dumb. They didn’t say anything because they think I’m dumb and a mess.” – Craig (63:04)

Recurring Themes

• Generational Friction: Olive’s difficulties with her son Christopher, especially as he marries, divorces, and remarries far from Maine.
• Aging and Loneliness: Several stories (including those focused on other townspeople) deal with widowhood, suicide, and isolation in a small New England town.
• Bluntness Mixing with Wisdom: Olive’s unfiltered candor becomes both weapon and shield.
• Mythic Olive: In stories not centered on her, Olive appears like a force of nature—a town archetype, even when her power is ultimately limited.

---

5. Critical Reception and Literary Debate

• Is It a Novel?

  • The marketers say yes; critics (and the hosts) are less sure.

    “I think calling it ... a novel or short story cycle ... is useful. It does not feel like a collection ... feels a little bit more intentional.” – Craig (19:31)

• Mixed Response to Non-Olive Stories: Some critics find these stories dilute the emotional impact; others praise their thematic resonance.

• Strengths:

  • Emotional efficiency in characterization and scene-setting.
  • Episodic storytelling that accrues depth, even without a conventional plot arc.

    “She’s so good at, like, the little plot payoffs ... the art of the short story work that is happening.” – Craig (67:28)

• Final Sentiment:

  “Olive had a sense of just how desperately hard every person in the world was working to get what they needed. For most, it was a sense of safety in the sea of terror that life increasingly became.” – (69:17)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Pulitzer Praise:

  “It packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by Olive ... blunt, flawed, and fascinating.” – Andrew quoting judges (04:13)

• On Olive's Nature:

  “These words are synonymous. Like, these are [battle-axe, piece of work].” – Andrew (25:26)

• On Retaliation:

  “She roots through the dresser and takes one of Suzanne’s bras. Just stuff that in her handbag ... takes a marker ... just draws a big line down [her daughter-in-law’s sweater].” – Craig (49:10) “One shoe is so chaotic. Both shoes ... one shoe!” – Andrew (49:18)

• On Emotional Economy:

  “Very efficient. She’s very efficient and effective at ... orienting image or character sketch.” – Craig (29:21)

• On Format Debates:

  “It is akin to any film that is more a series of vignettes over a character’s life or something.” – Craig (31:53)

• On Olive’s Difficult Redemption:

  “In a book that’s got a character with upsides and downsides, the note you decide to end on ... flavors the rest of it.” – Andrew (65:46)

---

Important Segment Timestamps

• [04:08] – Book intro, genre, critical reception
• [08:07] – Elizabeth Strout’s biography & writing influences
• [17:04-21:30] – Origin of stories, early magazine publications, and structure debate
• [24:52] – Main analysis of the Olive-centered stories starts after break
• [26:42] – Example of Strout’s character building and emotional economy
• [43:43-50:28] – “A Little Burst” deep dive: humiliation and petty revenge
• [55:18] – “Tulips” and Olive’s reckoning with her own motivations
• [61:22–64:12] – “Security” (Olive in NYC): emotional climax and unraveling
• [69:17] – Closing passage: striving for safety in an unsafe world

---

Final Thoughts

• Is It a Novel or a Story Cycle? Ultimately, the hosts appreciate the cumulative, novelistic resonance of Olive’s story—accrued through a cycle of tight, episodic tales that live and breathe as small town life does: sometimes meandering, more often deeply personal and unexpectedly profound.
• Strout’s Literary Magic: The real magic lies in Strout’s capacity for brief, resonant character moments and the palpable, lived-in humanity of Olive—a woman as likely to steal a bra from her daughter-in-law as to rescue a lost soul in a parking lot.
• Why Olive Kitteridge Endures: As Craig concludes, Olive Kitteridge is “Olive’s life, and we’re just living in it ... pretty successful in that way.” (67:10)

---

For those who haven’t read or listened: this episode offers an accessible, entertaining entrance not just to the book but to the enduring questions about how stories—especially those of small-lived, large-hearted people—hold us together in a complicated world.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgun podcast,

[Craig]

Andrew. This episode is brought to you in part by Mint Mobile. When we were kids, summer meant freedom. No more homework, no more books, no more teachers, dirty looks. But as adults, summer still means freedom. Thanks to Mint Mobile's summer sale. Right now, all of Mint Mobile's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. So free yourself from big wireless and their gimmicks and their gotchas and their dirty looks and switch to Mint for high speed data and coverage on the T Mobile 5G network. Andrew, you use Mint Mobile.

[Andrew]

I do use Mint Mobile. Not just in the summer, but in all the seasons it has provided me good, reliable and inexpensive cellular telephone service. And I have not thought about switching since we switched to it.

[Craig]

Because you know that with your high speed data you get unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G. And if you switch today, you can even bring your current phone and number with you. So to get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com overdue. That's mintmobile.com overdue. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com overdue. That'S it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 months. Plan required, $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term 50 gigabyte may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot capable device required availability, speed and coverage varies. Siemenmobile.com While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not

[Kyle Mooney]

shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Craig]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig. My name is Andrew and I have never told my life as a series of short stories set in the town where I grew up. But it could happen.

[Andrew]

Like you, like over the many years that we've known each other, I've kind of gotten a number bits and pieces. Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

I guess what you haven't gotten though are stories where I'm a bit player. Have I told you like, you know what I mean?

[Andrew]

I know. I guess the stories that you tell me about, you're mostly the main character. Don't tell me the things where like these people. I mean that's always really fun though, right? Is like you walk by people who are like trying to get on the bus, but also having what is clearly the biggest argument they've ever had in their entire life. And you do wonder to yourself, you know, what is their deal? But you don't. You don't absorb the entire deal just from being a background character.

[Craig]

And so it's hard to relay that as a story more than just an image. Right. I saw a person wearing a weird hat. I can't believe that person was dancing that way next to that funny sign that I saw, you know, like, ice cream cone guy. Ice cream cone guy.

[Andrew]

Ice cream cone guy's back.

[Craig]

He's back. But I can't tell you the beginning, middle, and end of their story because I didn't live it. But maybe if I was a novelist like Elizabeth Strout, I would write a book for our book podcast, where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it. Andrew, what book did I read this week for the show?

[Andrew]

You read Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout.

[Craig]

I did.

[Andrew]

A 2008 book that won the 2009 Pulitzer for fiction. Pulitzer.

[Craig]

Pulitzer, yeah.

[Andrew]

Was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Pulitzer judges Craig said, it packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by all of the title character. Blunt, flawed, and fascinating. Every review of this book that I've read is like, this old battle axe is so full of humanity that you can't help but like her. And so I'm really, really excited for you to tell me about this old. This whole crunchy bra that is sort

[Craig]

of how the book works. It's kind of funny. And we'll talk more about the. The structure of the book and, you know, where some of the stories come from. But, yes, it does seem how people

[Andrew]

respond to it seems to hinge on how they feel about the structure. So I'm curious to hear how you experience it.

[Craig]

It does seem like Strout tapped into her relationship with her mother, which is not unique to this novel. I think that's a theme that runs throughout a few of her books. Also, reportedly, a very tough lady. And yeah, there. There are parts of this book where you're like, okay, Olive, you're kind of. You're kind of in the wrong here, or you're at least being very difficult. And the book is making me at least keep a foot on your side like most. It's not to say that she's. Of this whole battle accident is a good way to put. It's just like the vibe. No, that's the Vibe. It's totally the Vibe review. And it's. It's not like she is always just dealing damage in all these stories, you know, but it is, she is a tough lady to get along with for a lot of people. And that is the role she plays in every story, whether it is a big one or a small one. I am also struck by the fact that like I put this on the, on the schedule because I had heard of it before. It's a, you know, it's a celebrated novel with accolades.

[Andrew]

There is a well regarded 2014 TV series starring Francis McDormand. Yeah. Which won eight Emmy awards including for McDormand as outstanding lead Actress.

[Craig]

Is that also Richard Jenkins? I think is in that.

[Andrew]

I believe he is, I believe he

[Craig]

is also just the, the best status act that Hollywood ever did. And I think. I don't know when it must have been when the, when it won the award. Like late to late aughts. We had just graduated from college. I am spending a summer working at my mom's office and I think I'm reading a lot of Slate at the time.

[Andrew]

We all were.

[Craig]

We were all reading a lot of Slate.

[Andrew]

We were all reading a lot of Slate. And you won't believe what happened next.

[Craig]

And I, I truly know Slate was

[Andrew]

the one that was just like pop

[Craig]

culture gabfest, you know, but also like contrary.

[Andrew]

But like this, this isn't the way

[Kyle Mooney]

you think it is.

[Andrew]

But not a bit of you think or whatever.

[Craig]

Yes. Yeah. And. And I do just remember this getting covered because it had won the Pulitzer. I just like I. That was also where somebody had written about Infinite Summer where people were reading Infinite. I was like, I'm out of college. I'm interested in, you know, ideas.

[Andrew]

I need to keep expanding my brain.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yes.

[Craig]

Even though I'm not going to get it from Slate.

[Andrew]

I guess even though I'm not paying someone mid five figures.

[Craig]

No. I'm actually still paying the people who did it.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

Well, for many years. But. So this book has just been kind of floating around and I'm happy to finally get here. Tell me about Elizabeth Strout, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Elizabeth Strout, who does sound like kind of a nursery rhyme character.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

If you think about it. But Elizabeth Strout was born in 1956. She's an American author. I don't have any other follow ups on that thought. It just occurred to me as I was reading her name out loud. Like Stephen King, she set several of her novels in a fictitious town in Maine. Jeez. Though this one does seem to be visited by fewer supernatural monsters, which is, which is nice.

[Craig]

None of them are in this book anyway.

[Andrew]

And for property values, probably. I bet, I bet property values in her main town are better than they are in Derry. This is from her website quote. During her adolescent years, Strout continued writing avidly, having conceived of herself as a writer from early on. She read biographies of writers and was already studying on her own the way American writers in particular told their stories. But poetry was something she read and memorized. By the age of 16, she was sending out stories to magazines. Her first story was published when she was 26. So her, even though she is, you know, she is thinking of herself as a writer early on, she's submitting stories early on. She's very interested in all of this. She doesn't start getting novels published until a little bit later in her life. Until she gets like closer to middle age. Yeah, she's talked about her early career, like waitressing and going to law school and being a bad lawyer. She said yes, but not really getting anywhere with her with her novels. There's an interview with her in the Guardian. Old overdue favorites at the Guardian around when the sequel to Olive Kittredge came out. The sequel is called Olive Again.

[Craig]

I love it. What a good name. I love it so much.

[Andrew]

And it says of her, she, quote, continues to be mildly baffled by the success of the book. That's the original Olive Kidridge. Um, she's grateful that it came late in her career. She was 53 when Olive Kittredge was published. And she says, and thank God I wasn't 23 because at that point I'd had so many years of isolation and working and just slogging through that although I was grateful I was far, far too old to be changed. And she, she talks about the sort of formative, not the formative moment, but the moment where she like found her voice as a writer and then started finding success was in her late 30s. She's living in New York City and she's taking a stand up comedy class.

[Craig]

I saw this. Yes.

[Andrew]

And listen, if, if you are out there somewhere with a notepad trying to just like keep a list of every good thing that came out of someone taking a stand up comedy class. Do add this to the very short list that you've. That you are working on. But she says she's taking the stand up class and it's making her write honestly about herself and her background and just like realizing l in this big city with all these different people that she is she is so white and she is so from New England. And like that plus a homesickness for Maine helps her sort of find what she's what she's trying to write about. She says, quote, I was trying to write like a writer, a capital W writer, instead of finding my own voice. And the other mistake was I was trying to use a relatively new environment to write about New York that had not yet absorbed into me completely. And so she has her first novel come out in 1998. It's called Amy and Isabel. It does. Like, she achieves critical and commercial success pretty early on. Yep. This does become a TV movie created by Oprah Winfrey Presents in 2001, which probably helped some. I don't know that it's eligible for

[Craig]

this success, but I can't imagine how that would have helped at all.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But her second novel, abide with me, comes in 2006. And then Olive is her third novel in 2008. And yeah, that does the Pulitzer, wins the other awards. And, yeah, it just sells a lot of copies. It's a New York Times bestseller. And, yeah, she is pretty much set from then.

[Craig]

Yep. Whole bunch of books afterwards. The Burgess boys.

[Andrew]

There's a Lucy Barton.

[Craig]

My name is Lucy Barton. Yeah.

[Andrew]

She started in 2016 with a book called My Name is Lucy Barton. And that has that has spawned a few, oh, William sort of sequels like Things in the Same Lucy by the Sea View, Ask Universe, the Lucy Barton verse.

[Craig]

There's a good.

[Andrew]

And then in a book called Tell Me Everything that comes out, I think 2024, Olive is in that one.

[Craig]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And so that's that's the next appearance of Olive after Olive again.

[Craig]

And she just had a book come out called the Things We Never Said, which was also long listed for the booker. There is a good interview with her on Fresh AIR with Terry Gross in 2016 around the Lucy Barton release. She talks a little bit about in that interview and others about her parents. Her dad was they were both professors. Her dad was a parasitologist.

[Andrew]

Whoa, whoa. So he's parasites. Yeah.

[Craig]

And her mom taught writing in high school. And I think her mom is supposed to be some of the makeup of Olive. Like, Olive is a high school math teacher who looms large in the life of every young person who meets her, not just because she's like, she is a stern teacher. You don't get any real depiction of her as an instructor.

[Andrew]

It's always like, it sounds like everything is coming after.

[Craig]

Like, well, everything's coming after that.

[Andrew]

Doing that and then maybe you'll run into people who experienced her as that. But it is not about their time in her class.

[Craig]

And it is. It is like a device for her to know a lot of people in this town, for a lot of people in this town to know her. And for some of the students we meet, they kind of hint that she's like one of those teachers who you were scared of. But you still think about all the stuff they said to this very day. Yeah, that's.

[Andrew]

We all have those.

[Craig]

No, we all have those. She does talk about her parents being very strict in some ways. They were a. Like, no tv, no newspapers, no parties, no dates, no visiting friends, papers they read. They got their news from, like, literary magazines or whatever, Man.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I bet. I would hate how that kind of family would get its news now.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. She said that she. When she went to college, she had only seen two movies, 101 Dalmatians and the Miracle Worker. She'd been so. Okay, you know, I mean, I.

[Andrew]

Those wouldn't be my 2, but I can respect that.

[Craig]

Yes. And she said of their kind of their vibe in a 2009 interview with the Washington Post, it was the sense of that beyond their door lay a hostile environment from which she and her brother should be protected. That said, she did says she kind of intertwined with her mother's feelings. And they used to play a lot of people watching games, which kind of explains some of the character portraits in this book. I think her mother's father took his life, and that kind of trauma, both for immediate family and for descendants, is, like, shot through this entire book. There are lots of discussions of folks who have family who have taken their lives, or who are dealing with depressive episodes. It's only the primary focus of one story, but it is, like, something everyone's kind of dealing with. And the other thing she said in that Terry Gross interview is, to your point, Andrew, like, she had tried writing about New York and it wasn't taking. Because there wasn't enough, like, life material within her, I guess.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

She talks about family members in Maine and New Hampshire who were older women whose partners had. Had, like, already passed away for whatever reason. And she's like. It was interesting to her at a younger age to encounter women living beyond the passage of, you know, the passing of their spouse. Because, like, there's just this image of, like, well, your husband dies, and then you're just like, shut up in your house as a spinster. Like, for, like, in her community, that's kind of the image or in stories or whatever. And she's like, oh no, there are people who like go on living and what is that like? And what do they experience? Some of that happens in this book as well. This is kind of interesting how she figured out what to turn into material.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

As we said, this book came out in 2008, won a bunch of awards. Some of the stories were written between 92 and 2007.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there were.

[Craig]

I tried to track them all down. I couldn't find all of them.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there was one of the reviews of it that I read in some. In like some blog. Not to be like dismissive of it hard one minute. Book reviews this is a review from 2009. So after the, after the Pulitzer win.

[Beck Bennett]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And this review by Janice Hareda starts out. It tells you something about olive Kittredge that two of its 13 short stories were published in 17 and oh, the Oprah Magazine. This is one of the lighter weight winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It tells you more that two other stories appeared in the New Yorker and South Carolina Review. These tales, if often moving, have the disjointed quality of scenes from different dreams. Not endorsing that viewpoint, but I am saying that some folks have observed the. Not piecemeal, but like the, the sort of dis. Yeah. The disjointed nature of, of. Of how the stories are put together and the sort of like this review did not end up being like negative about the book overall, but did. And we can talk about this more after the break. But did come come down on not loving the. The structure of says Olive Kittredge ends as good novels typically do, with a redemption of sorts. But because the book isn't a novel, hasn't built toward that transformation as novels do. Its ending has less force diluted by digressions into lives of characters who rel it obliquely, if at all. And then the, you know, I read like there's a. The. The Guardian piece about the Pulitzer win. I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna settle on Pulitzer. I'm gonna keep saying it over and over until I pronounce it consistently twice in a row. Like called it a short story collection instead of a novel. Like it's, you know, it's the way that people have.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Talked about it varies a little bit because it does kind of seem like, you know, it is telling one story but also it's kind of not. So. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. I think calling it there the Wikipedia entry that I have open here mostly

[Andrew]

encyclopedia that anybody can edit.

[Craig]

Anybody can edit. If you just give them $2, please.

[Andrew]

Give them.

[Craig]

Please actually give them money. Give them $2. Give them. It's more than $2, please. It calls it a novel or short story cycle. And I will kind of dig into what I think about that story cycle nomenclature, because I think that is useful. It is. Does not feel like a. Parts of it anyway, do not feel like a collection. It is. Feels a little bit more intentional. But the ones that I tracked down, running Away, which was renamed Ship in a Bottle, was published in Seventeen magazine. 92. There's a story called Criminal, published South Carolina Review. 94. Those two are two of the ones that are like, yeah, we're in here. We're not. Olive's not the main character. There's a later one, Winter concert, published in Ms. Magazine in 99. It's a little closer to the main heart of the book. The one that does, like, crystallize the novel or the. Or the book for her, anyway, is a story called a few bursts, 1998 New Yorker. It's an Olive story that we'll talk about that is set at the wedding or the after party of the wedding of Olive's son.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

But then she also says that this book came from. She was interested in Stockholm syndrome, which was a thing in the 70s. Everybody was getting into. I don't think anybody was.

[Andrew]

Everybody was getting into it.

[Craig]

Well, like, it became like everybody.

[Andrew]

Everybody was getting kidnapped and then.

[Craig]

No, no.

[Andrew]

Just like their kidnapper.

[Beck Bennett]

Everybody.

[Craig]

I don't. I think. I think it's largely. I don't know. I'm not Michael Hobbs. I think it's been sort of debunked as a thing because there are particulars to that case that I think kind of get missed is what I recall. Anyway, we're not here to talk about Stockholm syndrome. Except that.

[Andrew]

Not here to talk about stuff that we vaguely remember from stuff that we might have read.

[Craig]

Except that Strout says that she started writing a story about a woman who stops at a hospital to use the bathroom and is then held at gunpoint by young men who come and raid the hospital. She was kind of stuck on that story for a long time and then had started writing stories that had Olive in them and realized that Olive is a great character but can't be, like, on screen all the time.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

And that Olive was kind of the perfect character to actually be the focus of this gunpoint story that she'd been working on. So she. Then she starts kind of pulling together her disparate Ideas and making them into this collection slash story cycle. So let's take a quick break and then I could tell you more about Olive herself and the stories that make up her life.

[Beck Bennett]

Hi, I'm Beck Bennett.

[Kyle Mooney]

I thought I was Beck Bennett.

[Beck Bennett]

No, no, no, no, it's okay.

[Kyle Mooney]

Kyle Mooney.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes. Sorry about that. Exactly. No, all good. All good.

[Kyle Mooney]

Thanks, buddy.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. And we host the show what's our podcast here on Headgum.

[Kyle Mooney]

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and make you look like a kick ass person online.

[Beck Bennett]

Like you're skateboarding through the Internet or you're like you're surfing through the web.

[Kyle Mooney]

Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place.

[Beck Bennett]

I like that it's all in one place. I don't, I like that I don't have to go around, you know, like, different stores or something.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's just all, it's like, oh, do I need to go to like, do I need another type of website to like, find the right pictures or to like another type of website to upload?

[Beck Bennett]

You know, it's all in one place.

[Kyle Mooney]

The video or audio or like.

[Andrew]

No, I want. It makes it easy.

[Kyle Mooney]

Make it easy on me, please.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes. And you can do all those things. Photos, videos, changing fonts, you know, I mean, the designs are, are amazing. They're catering to all your different needs. They're SEO tools, which. I know what those are. And their custom domains.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, let's come up with a domain right now. Let's see. I wonder if it exists.

[Beck Bennett]

Www.friendsmeeting friends.

[Kyle Mooney]

Friendsmeetingfriends.com that's an original thing that we came up with.

[Beck Bennett]

Friends meeting friends. Anyway, so check out squarespace.comedgum for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code headgum to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hell, sounds easy. Anybody could do it.

[Andrew]

Sleep Number's new collections are designed to adapt to the changing nature of your life and your sleep needs. Whether it's the personalized comfort of the Comfort Mode mattress, the targeted pressure relief of the Comfort Next mattress, or the climate collection that actively cools or warms to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

[Craig]

And now get early access to our box. Biggest sale of the year. Save 25% on the new Comfort Next Lux for a limited time only at a Sleep Number store or Sleep Number Dot com.

[Andrew]

Craig, please tell me about all of these stories.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

I need to hear all of the things that you have to say about them. Is that all of them, all of us are waiting, including the people at home, all of them are waiting for you to tell us about Olive. Get Ridge, please.

[Craig]

A middle aged math teacher living in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. And as I put it in my notes, I didn't say battle axe, I said piece of work.

[Andrew]

These words are synonymous. Like these are.

[Craig]

It is a 13 story collection that if I recall, if I've. If my notes are accurate, there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 stories where she is explicitly not the main character. There's another story where she like really barges in on another guy's story and is like the second character in it, even though it is technically this other guy's story. And then the rest are her or her husband. The opening story is told from the point of view of her husband. And the whole book is like a free, indirect, omniscient narrator. So Strout is very adept at like, here's a character, I'm describing this character to you. And then I'm gonna like drop some real emotional heft in a very tiny moment of this character doing something. I'll give you some text as an example.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

So that I'm not just speaking in abstracts.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that would be great.

[Craig]

In the, in the second story in the book, Incoming Tide, we have a young man who has returned to Crosby, Maine, is very strongly considering taking his own life. He's sitting in a parking lot waiting to go do the deed. And Olive Kittredge sees him in the parking lot and just kind of barrels in and is like, hey, I'm going to get in your car and I'm going to talk to you and I'm going to really catch up on the, you know, catch the vibe that you're giving. And I'm going to tell you about suicide in my family and how that went down.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And he kind of struggles with the attention he's getting. Strout said she based this. She had the idea for the story and then went. Did some research on. Read an article about a guy who tried to take his own life on the Golden Gate Bridge and survived and like kind of to get in this type of headspace.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

And Olive successfully persuades him from doing it without ever actually saying that out loud just by kind of being with him and being the straight shooter that she is.

[Andrew]

She does seem like, that seems like the, like, you know, she's a battle ax. But she's a straight shooter.

[Craig]

Yes. And there's wisdom and empathy results.

[Andrew]

Like it's a. It's a. You know, you gotta. You gotta take the abrasive qualities to get the. The redeeming qualities.

[Craig]

But in that. In that story, which I did like, there is a character named Patty Howe who works at a. At a restaurant that this parking lot is adjacent to. And the main character, Kevin, of the story sees Patty. But the story just kind of gives us Patty's third person perspective. Quickly. She's talking about some muffins in the. In the diner. And she says they're perfect. She said to the cook, because the tops of the muffins were crispy at the edges, yellow as rising suns. The fact that their newly baked scent did not touch off a queasiness in her, as they had two times in the past year, made her sad. A soft dismalness settled over her. The doctor had said to them for three months, you are not to even think of it. I think my note in the. In the digital edition, I had just said strout. Just like, okay, Very efficient. She's very efficient and effective at either sketching a scene, giving you kind of an orienting image for the short story that you're reading. Good short story writers do this very, very well and very efficient character sketches like that.

[Andrew]

But something I have from the New York Times.

[Craig]

Yeah, hit me.

[Andrew]

And we can.

[Craig]

We'll bounce around this whole thing as

[Andrew]

we're talking about the ones that Olive is in only sort of tangentially. Yeah, this is. This says it's no coincidence. No coincidence that the two weakest stories are the ones in which she is merely mentioned. Without her, the book goes adrift as if it has lost its anchor. Curious to know, like, the. The stories where there's a whole story and then they go into like a 711 and Olive is there, like buying one of the hot dogs off of the hot dog thing.

[Craig]

Listen, it's a little like that. I think I can run it down real quick and. Better to get better to actually talk

[Andrew]

about these first because it does sound like they're. They're in the minority.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

With respect to the collection, so.

[Craig]

And because, like, we'll want to talk about Olive and leave with Olive. But my. My main note for these is that I liked them fine in the moment, but they don't linger as strongly as the ones where Olive is the main character. Also, because, yes, it is not a novel. One of the things that the story cycle structure gives Strout is the leeway to be like, I don't need to have what I'm writing here be an explicit payoff eight chapters later. I don't need to have a propulsive plot that is, like, in. You know, making you turn the page beyond the next 10 or 10 to 30 pages. Right.

[Andrew]

Craig, I got real bad news for you.

[Craig]

What?

[Andrew]

Real quick, just. Just real quick. The COVID on Amazon, does it say a novel? Yep. Olive Kittredge a novel, so. By Elizabeth Strauss.

[Craig]

Parts of it.

[Andrew]

I wondered if you were gonna clock what I was. I was running up.

[Craig]

I think the Olive stuff kind of works as a novel. It just. It, like, you get a. That all those stories are structured linearly in Olive's life. And there is a. There's, like, recurring information. You learn about their son Christopher. You learn about her relationship with her husband Henry. You learn about other people in town that she does and does not care about. You learn about Christopher's two wives that she does and does not care about. Those stories really build on one another, even though, like, narratively, they don't cause one another.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

You know, it is akin to any film that is more a series of, like, vignettes over a character's life or something.

[Andrew]

Well, this is. This is, I think, about some of the writing our friend. Friend of the show, Catherine Van Arendonk, has done about, like, episodic storytelling.

[Craig]

Tv.

[Andrew]

And in TV shows, especially older TV shows that were not explicitly, like, serialized, but the characterization did sort of accrue over time. Yeah, I think of it as being sort of that thing like. Yes, the.

[Craig]

The.

[Andrew]

The events in story number three did not directly cause events in story number seven, but because we have read story number three already, we have more insight into why she might be acting this way in story number seven or, like, something like that.

[Craig]

Her arc with her son Christopher is a good example of this because it is really the spine of the book, in my opinion, where.

[Andrew]

Figuratively.

[Craig]

Yeah, metaphorically.

[Kyle Mooney]

You see.

[Craig]

And we'll get back to the thing that we actually said we're going to talk about.

[Andrew]

The spine of the book is like glue and stuff.

[Craig]

Oh, my goodness. In real life, a novel. Her son Christopher, in the very first story, Pharmacy, which I know,

[Andrew]

let's just

[Craig]

both laugh about a song your son made up. Her husband runs a pharmacy and kind of, like, winds up doting on a younger employee whose husband was also named Henry. And he took a liking to her, and then, like, he never does anything. But her. This young woman's husband dies, and then he like, thinks about taking care of her is kind of. That's kind of as far as he gets. And it's obviously written with, like, you. You understand that there's an emotional infidelity there, but there are references to their son Christopher, who is a young man who is a little, like. He deals with depression. You're not quite sure anymore the specifics in that story. Then we get the next time we see him, he's married to someone who. The vibe is that he. She is taking him away from them. Then next you see him, he is divorced but living in California. Then in the last story, you see him, he is remarried but living in New York City. New York City.

[Andrew]

New York City.

[Craig]

That's kind of Olive's first response.

[Andrew]

And, I mean, she's seen the commercial.

[Craig]

I know. And this. This does have a through line to it.

[Andrew]

Do the.

[Craig]

Do the distinct stories Cause the next story. No, not at all. But emotionally, you are given access to. You have better access to Olive's, like, why she's responding the way she is, what she is thinking about when she is dealing with these new situations. Because you've read the other stories in sequence. I think the thing that makes the book really work is that they are. They do have strong episodic setup. Payoff. Like, they're never concerned with a payoff three stories from now, even though there might be information that is sprinkled between them. But they do have pretty tight. Like, this is. These are the emotional beats that will make the end of this story land.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

That said, the five stories where Olive is really a bit player, they're. They're well structured, they're well written. I don't particularly remember much about the sad piano player Angie, who saw Olive and her husband one night while other things were going on.

[Andrew]

I was gonna ask, like, do you remember the one that Olive feels the most shoehorned into?

[Craig]

Like, is that.

[Andrew]

Is there one that is the most. Like. And then Olive was also there.

[Craig]

The one. The. The two that I think are the most there. There are two where Olive does show up. 1. There's another one starving. Where Olive kind of like, there's a guy who's considering leaving his wife for somebody else. It's about kind of shifting from sleeping with someone to becoming emotionally invested in them. About differences in opinions on love between generations. And, like, while one young couple is falling apart, Olive shows up at the door to collect charity money. And then, like, becomes involved for a few pages.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

There's another one where an older couple. Ultimately, there's a Revelation of, you know, somebody visiting a woman from their past. They see Olive at a winter concert.

[Beck Bennett]

Okay.

[Craig]

There are two that are about kind of younger women where it is literally just like. And I remember my teacher Olive Kittredge was kind of strange and overbearing. One of those stories is stronger than the other. Ship in a Bottle is about, you know, two younger girls in a family trying to get out of there. I liked that one more than Criminal, about a woman who's kind of in a rut. And I guess at the end of the story, she's going to light a doctor's office on fire for not believing her about her body. Like, okay, that one.

[Andrew]

That is a problem.

[Craig]

I'm probably not doing that story justice. It's called Criminal. I just had a hard time clicking with what that one was about.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Because it is also not set explicitly in the small town anymore. It is just like the worst case scenario for a book like this is that it is so far removed from the core character and core premise that it just doesn't. And it comes pretty late in the. In the collection. So you're like, I am just hungry for more Olive stuff.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, what is this? Is this breaking momentum? Is this still feel like it's. It's building towards something like, you know, what function is it serving?

[Craig]

And it is giving you. What I can say for all of these is it is giving you all of them. Oh, my goodness. Walked right into that one.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

They are giving you variations of a theme that is really strong in the Olive stories.

[Andrew]

So all of her. All of her stories.

[Craig]

All of her stories. I had the least trouble with the story Starving and Winter Concert because those are both about kind of a similar marriage to where we see Olive throughout the book. And you're just getting kind of different characters dealing with the like, oh, what. What would emotional infidelity feel like? Oh, what would. Like, I did something, but it wasn't actually bad, but it did make you feel bad. And now we still are married and have to live together. And we also agree that those other people staying. But we can't bond over that in the same way anymore. Those feel really germane to Olive's experience. Even though she's not the main character. The Piano Player 1 didn't really work for me too much. The younger. The younger girls run worked. I think that is. There's something. There's some juice in that one that feels like inspired by some of Strout's family stuff, I think. Think because that family in Ship in a Bottle Is also, like, deliberately cut off from the grid in some ways and things like that. But anyway, I can see how someone would hit those stories and, like, be like, this collection's weird. Or they distract you from what you might be liking about the book.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. Or like. Or it said a novel on the COVID But it doesn't feel like it's sort of hanging.

[Craig]

Those ones. Yes, they do not. Most of them do not add to the vibe of the town. They don't have recurring she's. They've, like, kind of less recurring characters in those. They're not building a tapestry the same way that the Olive stories do.

[Beck Bennett]

What?

[Andrew]

Like, I'm sure that you put a novel on.

[Craig]

I know we gotta. We gotta get a marketing whiz on.

[Andrew]

I'm sure they do it just so that people know that it's fiction. Just so that people don't know that it's a real thing that really happened.

[Craig]

Yeah, some of it.

[Andrew]

But I do like to think about a person who's looking at it and just kind of examining it and, like, looking at the. You know, looking at the dust jacket and kind of looking at the back of it. And then they. They read the front. They're like, oh, it's a novel.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, could we even be more specific? Like, oh, it's historical fiction. It's romantic. It's romantic historical fiction.

[Craig]

You say, oh, it's queer sci fi.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Just like, if we're gonna have the label there, could we at least like, make it more like AO3 tags or whatever so that people can do it? So that people can figure out if

[Craig]

we're gonna do the tags. Let's do the tags. Okay. I like the first two stories in this collection. They're called Pharmacy and Incoming Tide. As I said, this depiction of Henry is really. It's the classic thing where he's a character that's very easy to like. He has his little pharmacy that he runs, and it allows him to help take care of everybody in town. And he's like, a good guy. Is his marriage amazing? Hard to say, quote. He would open the safe, put money in the register, unlock the front door, wash his hands, put on his white lab coat. The ritual was pleasing, as though the old store was a person altogether steady and steadfast. And any unpleasantness that may have occurred back at his home, any uneasiness at the way his wife often left their bed to wander through their home in the night's dark hours. All this receded like a shoreline as he walked through the safety of his pharmacy, huh? Yeah. And he, you know, legitimately cares for this young woman and wants to help her. Olive exists in that story to be like, I don't want to have those people over.

[Andrew]

I get it. Like, yeah, yeah, I felt like that.

[Craig]

And you. You also get a very brief mention of when there's the kind of moment in that story where it's like, oh, okay, that dream is gone, and this young woman has moved away with another. Another man. The story does some interesting stuff to kind of keep you on your toes about what ultimately is the face of. I think Denise might be her name, the fate of her at the end of the story. But Henry, in recognizing that this kind of dream is done, also remarks that Olive clearly had feelings for this guy Jim o', Casey, who died in a car accident. And that does get referenced a few other times, but I remember it hitting me in the first chapter that is like, oh, yeah, they're together, and they're together for the long haul, but. And they're. Which means they're smart enough about each other to. To know about these little wanderings.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right.

[Craig]

And to have. And to also want to, like, mitigate them or whatever.

[Beck Bennett]

The.

[Craig]

The story. A Few Bursts, I think it's called. Or is it a new burst or A few bursts?

[Andrew]

Tell me about these bursts.

[Craig]

A little burst. Excuse me.

[Andrew]

A little burst. Only one.

[Craig]

This is one of the.

[Andrew]

And a little one.

[Craig]

Yes. I think I called it a few bursts before the break. It's called A Little Burst. This was published in the New Yorker prior to. Ten years prior to the book coming out. The image that it opens with is Olive laying in the bed of her. In her son's house, in her son's bedroom. He has just gotten married to a woman he only met, like, maybe two months ago. And, okay, she is laying in their bed in their bedroom, thinking about how she doesn't really like his wife, but it is nice to see her kind of sad son be in love.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

And maybe fooling herself into being happier about it than she is. Another moment where I was, like, dang strout during the ceremony. The flower girl. I did not have a flower tosser in my wedding. You did not have. Did you have.

[Andrew]

No, I don't think we did either. Our wedding was one of the modern weddings where it was just like, hey, we're here. Like, in and out. Like, we're here. You know, we're here to be legally bound to each other forever because we love each other, but also, like, we're here to hang out with our friends and like eat food and stuff and so like, let's. Let's just like chop, you know, Chop, chop. Let's keep it moving.

[Craig]

No, we. We had a priest, we had a song. And then we did the part where it was a party. Yeah, I guess. But no, there's this passage where Olive is thinking about her daughter in law, reassuring the flower girl who did not want to go ahead with being a flower girl. Dr. Sue was nice about it, though, speaking reassuringly to the little girl, cupping her head gently around the child's head. Finally Suzanne called out good naturedly, oh, go ahead. To a woman standing near a tree who started playing a flute. Then Suzanne walked over to Christopher and the two stood there getting married on the lawn. But the gesture, the smooth cupping of the little girl's head, the way Suzanne's hand in one quick motion caressed the fine hair and thin neck, has stayed with Olive. It was like watching some woman dive from a boat and swim easily up to the dock. A reminder how some people could do things others could not. And it's a good introduction to Olive knowing that she is this like powerful straight shooter that has not always worked for everyone. And like some people can be gentle in a way that she can't. Is that. And she isn't sure which is better. It's just. She's not that way.

[Andrew]

Yeah, she is the way she is. That's the other thing about.

[Craig]

She is the way she is a

[Andrew]

character who is described as a piece of worker or an old battle axe. Like she is the way she is for better or worse.

[Craig]

And she loves her son Christopher, loves him so much. But also recognizes that she, you know, hasn't always been the kindest mother perhaps.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And she overhears through the window of this bedroom her new daughter in law mocking Olive's dress. Not fun. And also saying to somebody that when asked about her new in laws that she really likes her father in law. And when asked about Olive said, well, Christopher's had a hard time. Wow. And it sends Olive spiraling. It's an. It's an incredibly potent image of her. Just like in this bedroom hearing this out the window. And what do you think she does reaction to it? Andrew, what do you. What would you do if you heard this out the window about your child in law coming from your child in law?

[Andrew]

What I would do? I mean, nothing.

[Craig]

Maybe. I don't know, say something five years from now, a month from now.

[Andrew]

I knowing myself trying to speak honestly. Sure. And not. It's complicated. I feel like probably I would find small ways to passive aggressively or possibly aggressive aggressively retaliate.

[Craig]

Well.

[Andrew]

And.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

And probably it would just be like that forever with this person. That would be my relationship with them.

[Craig]

So Olive starts rooting through the drawers of the room of what? You know, she and her husband built this house for Christmas.

[Andrew]

And remind me what room she is in.

[Craig]

In the bedroom that her son and now wife have been living in.

[Andrew]

Okay. Okay.

[Craig]

And they built this house for them. Later there's a great betrayal where they, they moved to California. And she's like, how you've left this house that we built for you in our town.

[Andrew]

Did they. But did they ask great question.

[Craig]

I don't know.

[Andrew]

They asked them to build the house.

[Craig]

I know that's probably yes. I think you, I. I think you would understand where Christopher is coming from this book. She roots through the dresser and takes one of Suzanne's bras. Just stuff that sit in her handbag. Takes one of her.

[Andrew]

Do you know how expensive they're very expensive.

[Craig]

Takes one of her shoes, puts it in her handbag.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Takes a mark.

[Andrew]

One shoe is so chaotic. Both shoes.

[Craig]

Yeah, one shoe. Takes a marker and thinks, I'm going to mess up one of her clothes. Goes to the closet and finds a heavy beige sweater.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And thinks, well, it's summer now, she's not going to wear this for months. And just draws a big line down it.

[Andrew]

A beige sweater. I feel like maybe it's a black marker doing her a favor.

[Craig]

Well, fair enough.

[Andrew]

By ruining it.

[Craig]

And she thinks to herself, it does not help much, but it does help. Some know that at least there will be moments now when Suzanne will doubt herself because Christopher doesn't need to live with a woman who thinks she knows everything. Olive, Olive, Olive.

[Andrew]

I am like, I'm simultaneously repelled by and also in full agreement with, with this behavior.

[Craig]

I think that is kind of the magic of when this book is really cooking, is that you are like, olive, I would never do that. Or I hope I wouldn't necessarily do that. But I actually really kind of.

[Andrew]

But it's kind of sick that you did it well.

[Craig]

And you're like, oh, there's a tragedy in the pettiness that you know that she can engage in too. Right. A few stories later, there is the inspiration. The Stockholm syndrome story that is. Olive is in the car with Henry. Their son has moved to California. They're kind of bereft a little bit. And she's coming home from a restaurant and she really has to pee. So they go to A hospital. And she goes in the emergency room and goes pee. And the hospital nurse is like, hey, great job using the bathroom. I need you to check in and get checked out by the doctor. We did have a lady come through the other day and die because she ate crab meat. And we're like, really on edge about lawsuits. So I do need you to go get checked out. And while she is going through that process, the hospital is hell is held up by two men presumably searching for drugs or something.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And it's very demeaning. She's in her hospital gown. She's forced into, like a bathroom with the only other staff that are there as well as Henry. And it escalates into a fight between her and Henry. Like, that was the thing. I was like, oh, there's a couple spots in this book where you're getting just kind of whiffs of 2000s politics. Some of the whiffs are stronger than others. There are some explicit digs at George W. Bush from Olive in one of the later stories. Because she doesn't like him.

[Andrew]

No, I just mean, like, why would you. Why would you. Why would you have bad things to say about George W. Bush?

[Craig]

Sure, there are references to, you know, the towers coming down and like Olive as a. Someone in. In a small town in Maine and what her relationship to that is and is not. There's a character in one in the same story where she's getting on her high horse about George W. Bush where a guy doesn't like that his daughter is gay. So, like, politics will, like sneak in. More overt politics. Anyway, will kind of sneak into this book. And I was expecting this story to be a bit more of a. Like, oh, this, this hospital gunpoint story. More of a gun violence thing, I guess, maybe. And instead it's like an escalation of the breakup of Henry and Olive's marriage where they are like in a room with their captive, with their. With their captor, and they're arguing about whether or not their captor should curse and why Henry cares about that because of his over religious mother. And they just snip at each other, ultimately talking about, like, what drove Christopher away to California. And then like the next day or two when they're decompressing and trying to talk to each other about it, she's like, listen, I was just trying to save your life. And like, kind of out of nowhere, and Henry just goes, you have never apologized for anything. And you're like, oh, okay. Neither of you can take anything that you've said Back in this sequence.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that feels like. This is the Stockholm syndrome thing you were talking about, right? This feel. I don't. Because Stockholm syndrome feels different to me than a. Because I assume they're having this argument, like, in front of the person.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That.

[Andrew]

What is there a like a pithy short, like, pop science name for. I'm not in here with you, you're in here with me. Because that feels more like. What is that Feels more like what?

[Craig]

Rorschach? Is that what that is?

[Andrew]

I don't know.

[Craig]

No, it is more that the. The hostage situation.

[Andrew]

Rorschach test is already a thing.

[Craig]

Oh, no. Yeah, I meant from Watchmen.

[Andrew]

No, I know from Watchman.

[Craig]

Oh, you can't call her.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we can't. He's already a reference to something. We can't nest. We can't nest them.

[Craig]

No, it's just very artful in that I was like, oh, this might be a kind of one off story of how this tragedy impacts them. And it's not just that they were in mortal danger. It is that in a scene where they were in mortal danger, they spoke grievances with one another that were irrevocable.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

And that's kind of the artistry that she gets away with there. And I think also probably helped crack that story that it was like, oh, it's not. It can't just be this, like, one off character. It's this other woman that I've been investing in narratively and figuring out.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

There's two other stories I'll spend time with as we kind of close out.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, do that. And then hit me with your. Your final thoughts. And then we'll not do the podcast anymore.

[Craig]

One is the story till next week called Tulips, where their son is getting divorced, but he's staying in California, is not coming home. And they're like, what the heck?

[Andrew]

He's getting divorced from base. Sweater.

[Craig]

Yes. Sweater doctor. And they struggle, but find a retirement rhythm without him. And then randomly, outside of a grocery store, Henry has a stroke that leaves him maybe deaf, somewhat blind, needing to be in care, you know, 24 7.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

He's effectively kind of locked in, and she cares for him as best she can. She's having a rough one. She receives a strange condolence note from a woman in town named Louise Larkin, who. Her and her husband are shut ins after their son committed murder, killing his wife and getting locked up in an institution. And that's basically just kind of a thing that this town just doesn't talk about. Don't talk about that.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we're just gonna sweep it under the rug.

[Craig]

She gets a like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear about Henry note from Louise. And it's like, then this story, the rest of it is structured like the parts of Silence of the Lambs where she visits Hannibal Lecter. Like, she goes into this woman's house to like, thank her for the note.

[Andrew]

And they wheel her out in her

[Craig]

inner well and she's just in a living room and her husband lives upstairs. They don't live together really in their own house.

[Andrew]

They got duplex.

[Craig]

I don't really understand how.

[Andrew]

I mean, are they zoned for that? I mean. Yeah.

[Craig]

No, it's not like an additional dwelling unit.

[Andrew]

No. I bet. Like, did they give him his own kitchen and stuff?

[Craig]

Like, that's actually a good question. I don't know. That's not, you know, it's came out in 2008. It doesn't really deal with the housing crisis though.

[Andrew]

No, I mean, it was not written in 2000.

[Craig]

Yeah, fair enough. But she like, sits down to like, go talk to this lady, which everyone is like, why are you gonna go talk to this lady? And she's like, well, she sent me a nice note and it's clear that she is there to get like, schadenfreude. Like, I'm gonna go visit this woman who is a shut in because her son's a murderer. And that's gonna make me feel better about. Better about my situation that my son won't come home from California. And when he did come visit his now paralyzed dad, he like stayed for two days and then ran away sort of thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And Hannibal Lecter is like, yeah, that's why you came here. And it sucks. I could peer into your soul and you're here for the wrong reasons and you're thinking about ending your life. And I've thought about it too, and it. And just really like. And I am in contact with the nurse at your husband's facility. And she's telling me that the visits are really bad. And you're like, what is happening? That story kind of rocks, actually.

[Andrew]

Because I'm sure in. In most of the stories. Not all the stories, but I think in most of the stories it probably feels like Olive is in a. Like some kind of position of power or influence.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Being in control of. Of the situation in a way where she is explicitly not in this very much.

[Craig]

So that is one thing that the other stories do get give you that the Olive stories Don't have to take care of is that in the other characters stories, you get some of the mythic quality of Olive that Olive also knows about, but she is actually not that powerful.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And so her stories can knock her down a peg or all the way down. But you know that the town thinks of her in a couple of other ways as well. Yeah. Because she. She.

[Andrew]

You knock her down, but she gets. She gets up again.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's true. So I like that story. And then the. There's a couple other ones. You know, one where she goes to a funeral for somebody else's husband, and there's like, an exposure of infidelity there. There's the closing story where she gets a little bit of redemption. Redemption about being alienated from her son as she is, like, sleeping with this bigoted Republican retiree. It's kind of how it ends up where she's like, listen, I need to reconnect with someone. I'm too isolated. And like, I guess that's kind of redemptive. The story closer to the end that will stick with me is called security. She goes to New York City, where her son has now moved with his second wife. He sent her a note that's like, anne has the pukes. She's pregnant. And also, you know, he has two stepchildren now. And it's clear that he either wants his mom for emotional reasons, slash wants her there to help with his child care reasons.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But he keeps saying, has the pukes. Has the pukes.

[Andrew]

That's hilarious.

[Craig]

It is pretty funny.

[Andrew]

I'm really upset that this news is coming to you, and I. Many years. I know as the pukes take advantage of.

[Craig]

And then when she does arrive and does not have the pukes, she is, like, really warm and welcoming to Olive in a way that no one else in the book is, which is kind of an interesting change of pace. But Olive thinks that she is, in contrast to Suzanne, who was, you know, domineering and really calculating, thinks that Ann is dumb and simple and nice, but dumb and simple. And you're like, okay, well, Olive, thank you for your assessment of humanity.

[Andrew]

Pick Elaine.

[Craig]

Olive, also, she doesn't quite know what to do with the fact that Ann is drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette every day during pregnancy. That's kind of tough for her to deal with.

[Andrew]

You're allowed to have one. Well, what's the.

[Craig]

I don't think you're supposed to have one every day.

[Andrew]

Not one every day? No.

[Craig]

I don't think we're really supposed to do that. But also the thing that Olive is dealing with is that, like, Ann and her son, like, one of the reasons they moved to New York is that the therapist they were seeing moved to New York. And so there's this kind of generational relationship to therapy that is not unique to this book, but is. Is explored here.

[Beck Bennett]

Sure.

[Craig]

She spends a few days with them. Kind of like there is a. There are a few references to a post 911 New York. Kind of a. Like, fear of foreigners. You know, why. Why did that bodega never have groceries in it? Kind of stuff that Christopher says. It's a little weird. Just like nobody is feeling safe in their lives is kind of the theme that she's exploring here. And it boils over with, after a few days of Olive being like, this is kind of strange, but it is, I guess, nice to be in my son's life. Where they go to get ice cream. This is like the short story stuff that I've constantly impressed with, where it's like, they go to get ice cream with the kids, and Olive gets chocolate ice cream on her blouse and it looks dumb. She doesn't notice this until they're coming home from the ice cream store.

[Andrew]

That's the worst.

[Craig]

And in her head she goes, they saw me with the ice cream on my shirt. They knew I looked dumb.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

They didn't say anything because they think I'm dumb and a mess.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

And so the next morning, she goes, okay, I'm ready to go home now. And they're like, why? And she goes, I'm just ready to go home now. And Christopher goes, okay, I'll call you a car. And she's like, you're not taking me to the airport. And then it's just the biggest fight in the universe.

[Andrew]

Oh, boy.

[Kyle Mooney]

Okay.

[Craig]

Where? And you get it kind of chopped up where. Like, then she is at the airport. She does not have a cell phone. She's kind of overwhelmed by the new security theater of the late aughts. And she doesn't feel like she can go call Christopher again now and just kind of loses it a little bit. Thinks about, what if she went, tried to find a payphone to call him, and is just struck by the image of him just, like, looking away from her in the kitchen.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And then when they ask her to take her shoes off, she says, I'm not doing that. And they say, well, okay, you'll have to come with us. And she says, gladly. And that's the end of that story. They're like, dang, lady, but, oh, I

[Andrew]

mean, it's too bad that it fades away just in time for it to become like a sort of weird revenge fantasy thing where she beats up the tsa.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

And kind of. It's like a cathartic release for everybody who's ever had to go through an airport security line in the last, like, 25 years.

[Craig]

Yeah. There is a beat in that last story I referenced called river where she meets an older widower and they have a connection where she does, like, confess. Not confess, but she opens up about the Henry said, I never apologized thing and, like, has some moments of verbalized self awareness about how she has created her relationship with her son that I guess allude to what you. That one review you read that mentioned it having a redemptive quality. I didn't need it to have a redemptive quality per se. I just kind of at the end,

[Andrew]

it just feel like the way you'd. You have this book with this, like, sing muse of a complicated woman, basically.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And the way you, you know, you. You have these moments of like, yes, she's. She's not a great person, but. But she's also like a person and she. She can feel empathy for people and she can. You know, she's done good things and bad things. And then just like the. In a book that's got a character with upsides and downsides, the. The note you decide to end on.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, like flavors the rest of it, you know, like, it. I think it communicates to you what you're meant to be taking away from

[Craig]

the rest of the book. I will. I was so taken with the Olive in New York story, though, that I think I got. I got there by the end of that story. It would be my note mostly because I don't really care about. I'm also a little turned off by the, like, we have different politics last story, which is like, all those politics aren't super clear. Except that she does, when asked, say that, like, if her son was with another man, she'd love him anyway. And the guy's like, I just think differently. I don't know about that. You've never been tested that way. And she's like, well, that's a weird thing to say. And then they decide to find each other anyway because they're still both so lonely and like, okay, but I was with Olive at the, like, oh, this is really hard for her, being with her son. Her son has making some decent points also. She's a complicated lady getting carted away by the tsa. Like, I think, like, I was with her there. But overall, as I've said, I think the story cycle just kind of gives us, like, it's Olive's life, and we're just living in it. It's. It's pretty successful in that way.

[Andrew]

It's a. It's a novel.

[Craig]

Yeah. Well, fair enough.

[Andrew]

Olive Kitteridge, a novel.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

You keep. You keep calling it a story cycle.

[Craig]

I do, because I like thinking of it that way.

[Andrew]

Highfalutin coastal elite with your.

[Craig]

I like thinking about it that way

[Andrew]

with your $10 word.

[Craig]

She's so good at, like, the little plot payoffs. She's also so good at, like, in the New York story, there's a parrot in a dude's apartment upstairs that always says, praise the Lord whenever somebody curses. And it's like, that rules. And it's just like, that can't work in a novel.

[Andrew]

How can I teach a parrot to do that?

[Craig]

I don't know. And it, like, makes you assume things about that tenant. That's actually not true. You like. Whatever. It's just a. She's so good at that little. At the art of the short story work that is happening that I want to keep calling it a short story cycle because that is what I enjoyed about it.

[Andrew]

Maybe it's a novel, even though it's a novel, because it says on the COVID that's a novel. And you can't put it on the COVID of a book unless it's true.

[Craig]

And she is just so good at. Here's an image for a story. And then let me just kind of spit it out. Like.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

A chance meeting at a concert with someone you hate. A woman lying on her bed at her son's wedding. Olive just storming into a depressed man's car. The scene in Hannibal Lecter's house. Like, that stuff is just really potent. Even all the stuff in the hospital. She's just very good at a tight situation that she spins out. And I think the thing that was not working for me as well in the non Olive stories that were. They. It feels weird to say for a short story, but they were, like, a little sprawling. They were sprawlier. They didn't feel as tight.

[Andrew]

Well, like. And sprawlier to, like, an unclear end, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

The closing sentiment for me of the book is when Olive is thinking about her son and Anne and what's going on with them. It says Olive had a sense of just how desperately hard every person in the world was working to get what they needed. For most, it was a sense of safety in the sea of terror that life increasingly became. If that. If you're looking for, like, why did this short story collection, slash novel win the Pulitzer Prize?

[Andrew]

The Pulitzer Prize.

[Craig]

I think the judges may have been responding to that, which is certainly indicative of the rest of the book.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, they did say that it packs a cumulative emotional wallop.

[Craig]

Yeah, I was walloped at times.

[Andrew]

Yeah, Well, I mean, more than one. Did you. Did you notice that the. The collection was bound together by polished

[Craig]

bros. Also by it being condensed into a file that could go onto my E reader. It was also bound together that way.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

Not by glue and bits and bytes.

[Andrew]

I mean, you know, the glue of the information age, like a file system or whatever.

[Craig]

Andrew, thanks for letting me tell you about my new best friend, Olive Kit Ranch.

[Andrew]

Of course. I love. I can't wait to read. I can't wait for you to read Olive again.

[Craig]

You know, don't write it off. I actually think I would be more interested to read some of the Lucy Barton stuff.

[Andrew]

But listen, if you. If you read enough Lucy Barton, eventually you get to Olive.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's possible that I would start reading Lucy Barton and Olive would be. Would open the car door and be like, I need to talk to you. Oh, just. I just gotta say, this will be the last thing there is you can go find. I found it on bookbrowse.com it was an interview with Elizabeth Strout published by Random House's Reader Circle, where they sat down with, quote, olive Kittredge and Elizabeth Strout in a donut shop.

[Andrew]

Oh, no, don't do this. No.

[Craig]

If it's a weird read. No, I don't think.

[Andrew]

Because you can't. You can't do it.

[Craig]

No, it's. It's a weird read.

[Andrew]

Even if I didn't have to pee more than I've ever had to pee my whole life, which is how I am right now.

[Craig]

You can't let me tell you anything about this, though.

[Andrew]

I couldn't hear more about this interview that somebody conducted with a fictional character.

[Craig]

Yeah, well, they're both in it. And that's weird because. Because Strout is talking to Olive. It's very strange. Anyway, send us an email with what you loved about this book or your favorite time that an author spoke with their own character for an interview. Overdue Pot. GMO.com hit us up on social media at Overdue Pod. Our theme song is composed by Nick Lauren. Just Andrew. Folks, want to know more about the

[Andrew]

show where do they go overdue podcast.com is the Internet website up there. We have the schedule for August, which have we read in full.

[Craig]

Not in full at this point.

[Andrew]

All right, so Craig's gonna do that for you in a sec. But again, overdue podcast.com we have all the stuff you need all up there. Patreon.com overdue pod is another cool URL you can use to give us some money. Money, please. And we buy books and we buy hosting and we buy equipment and we buy all kinds of other stuff that makes a show work. And you get access to our Discord community and to bonus episodes and to newsletter and to other stuff. Patreon.com overdue pod Craig, what's the rest of August look like?

[Craig]

Well, last week we talked about the Odyssey, a film by Christopher Nolan inspired by Homer.

[Andrew]

But I love it.

[Craig]

But I love it. I've been listening to that score, and it does. The score does. Whip Olive Kit Ridge this week. Next week, Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldry. I think that's a series. We're reading the first book it is next. After that, Waist Deep by Linnea Maya Ernst. And then closing out the month of August with Nona the 9th by Tamsa Muir. I'm going back, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Going back. Can't wait. Pizza with left Podcast.

[Craig]

Find out what's going on. Electro. Still not out there, I don't think. But we're going to Nona.

[Andrew]

Who knows? All right, everybody, thank you for listening to our podcast. And until we pop in in a sort of a tangential way in the background of the story of your life, next time, please try to be apt. That was a Headgum podcast.

[Kyle Mooney]

What's up, everybody? I'm Kyle Mooney and what's up, everybody?

[Beck Bennett]

I'm back.

[Kyle Mooney]

Bell and man.

[Craig]

Ooh, I got.

[Kyle Mooney]

We got something to tell you.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, yeah, we definitely do.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yes. It's a brand new podcast on Headgum.

[Beck Bennett]

That's right. And it's called what's Our Podcast?

[Kyle Mooney]

Yep. And that's because we don't have a single idea what our podcast should be about.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, we don't. So we actually have guests come on and they tell us what they think our podcast should be about. And then we try it.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yep. Guests like Mark Maron, Jack Black, Brittany Broski Caperland, Bobby Moynihan, Meg Stalter and Tim Bolt, Landon axler, Jory Joanie McGree and Dender.

[Beck Bennett]

And Dender. New episodes release every Wednesday, so subscribe to what's our podcast on YouTube or

[Kyle Mooney]

any of your favorite podcast platforms. Yeah, I'm gonna go do it right now.