Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Wow that was some story book! once i started reading it, I had trouble focusing on anything else without having an intense desire to get right back to my book. Olive Kitteridge is in fact a character who appears in each of the 13 short stories that are set in a town in Maine. Some of the stories have Olive and/or her husband Henry as the central characters; in the others, she is a satillite character appearing as another characters teacher from high school, neighbor , friend or customer. The stories are painfully real, and although this town, as presented through these stories, seems to have more than its share of dysfunctional families. However, I suspect that if we knew what went on behind the apparently peaceful walls of homes all around, we would be surprised by the hurt and discord that transpires.
Immediately upon encountering Olive, I pictured Marilla Cuthbert(as played by Colleen Dewhurst), from Anne of Green Gables, with her gruffness and chronic misery (until she was mellowed by Anne's presence) and that picture stay with me until the end of the book.
I liked this book a lot. Elizabeth Strout is a marvelous story teller, and writes wonderful picturesque descriptions, although sometimes painfully so.