August 10, 2009 at 9:00 pm Eastern Time
Grab your copy of Olive Kitteridge: Fiction , a glass or mug of your favorite beverage, and join us.
Olive Kitteridge was the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction.
We're thrilled to announce that Elizabeth Strout, the author of Olive Kitteridge, will be participating in the discussion as well!
Questions? Post a comment below, ask on Twitter (@thebookmaven or @booksquare), or even use good old email: bethanne at thebookstudio dotcom.
The Twitter Book Club discussion for this book has already past.
It was a great discussion! Read an archived version below. Scroll to the bottom of this page to see the discussion questions and to add your comments about the book.
Archived discussion
SusanDEisenberg:
from me to @thebookmaven, @booksquare, all of you, and especially @ElizStrout for such an enjoyable discussion. Goodnight. #tbc
August 10, 2009 -- 10:00 pm
August 09 TBC Questions for "Olive Kitteridge"
Good evening, everyone! Here are the questions that your moderators, Bethanne and Kassia, have come up with and which we'll seed the discussion with at regular intervals. Each time we post a question, we'll append a Q and numeral to it -- "Q1," "Q2," etc. If you're answering a specific question, it would be helpful for you to append that question's Q-tag (for lack of a better term), too.
Q1: I happen to love the narrative flow that comes from a novel-in-stories, but some readers find the non-linear approach to be off-putting. Did this style work for you in this book?
Q2: In those instances where the character of Olive was revealed through her own thoughts and reflections, would you consider her to be a reliable or unreliable narrator?
Q3: As I read this book, I couldn't help but compare it to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. The difference, though, was that Winesburg was all about keeping secrets well-hidden while Olive Kitteridge dealt with secrets revealed. There were a lot of wounds exposed and left festering in this book. What secrets, hidden pieces impacted you the most? (thinking of the Janie learning her husband saw his old lover, the slow reveal that he's been involved with someone else in particular).
Q4: I found the ending of the novel beautiful. Throughout the story, there was a constant thread of depression and suicide, a sense that one could just give up, take the easy way out. Once Olive acknowledged some truths about herself, that path might have been attractive to her. What did you think about the mental and physical place we found Olive at the book's end?
Q5: Bonus question: did you want to whop Christopher upside the head and tell him to get over himself?
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