Olive Kitteridge

Henry Kitteridge, Olive’s husband, is an important fixture in Olive’s life. At the moment the audience is first introduced to Olive (through the perspective of Henry), she is beginning to question her faith. Henry is disappointed that Olive no longer attends church with him. Olive does not care for the social aspect of the church and chooses instead to stay at home. As on many occasions, Henry indulges this whim. He accepts and understands his wife, even if he does not approve or wishes she would act differently. This event is not the first time he indulges Olive and not the last time. He is polite and friendly (as remarked upon by many characters) while Olive is not. However, the two feel inextricable from one another, despite the rifts in their marriage. Olive’s worst behaviors are indulged by Henry and, in many respects, made worse by his indulgence. When Olive loses Henry to a stroke, she no longer has this emotional outlet, and she suffers greatly. From that moment on, she begins to search for a new person in her life.

One of Olive’s first attempts to find meaning following Henry’s stroke is rebuilding her relationship with her son, Christopher Kitteridge. Olive and Christopher have had a complicated relationship. Both are insular and introverted, thus unlikely to reach out and communicate freely. In many respects, Olive and Christopher are too similar to get along. Both have experienced depressive thoughts, and both are keen to extricate themselves from a situation rather than tolerate what they perceive to be bad behavior. Olive frequently leaves gatherings, conversations, and phone calls when she takes an ill view of a person. Christopher has moved thousands of miles away, either escaping or chasing the women in his life. Olive cannot understand why Christopher chooses to leave Crosby, even though she exhibits similar behavior.

After Henry’s stroke, Olive travels to New York to meet Christopher’s new wife, who is pregnant with his child. With Henry unresponsive, the trip is a chance to rebuild her concept of a family. But the trip ends abruptly after three days. An imagined slight results in Olive storming out. Before she goes, Christopher explains his litany of issues with his mother, and she is mortified. Though Olive has gone to Christopher in search of comfort, his challenge to her perception of reality proves overwhelming, and at least in the moment, she rejects it. Olive leaves—as she always does—because she does not want to face these truths.

Olive eventually finds her means of emotional resolution through Jack Kennison, whom she meets while walking beside the river. By this point, Henry is dead, and Olive has settled into an unfulfilling routine. She has tried to repair her relationship with Christopher, but talking with her son still fails to provide the human connection she wants. The initial stages of her friendship with Jack seem rocky. When she finds out that Jack is a Republican, on top of his prejudice toward his daughter and her girlfriend, Olive considers extricating herself from the situation once again. But this time, she does not. In Jack, she finds a person who is experiencing the same problem she is experiencing: the loss of a partner has left their lives feeling empty and unfulfilling. Rather than cutting Jack out, she chooses to go to him. The final line in the novel is telling in this respect. When invited to lie down on the bed beside Jack, she decides that “she did not want to leave it yet” (270), referring to the world at large.

Angie O’Meara is an older woman with an alcohol addiction who plays piano every night in a bar. She is dating a married man and haunted by her past, which includes her memories of her mother, who insisted Angie never leave her side. Although Angie grew up as a child prodigy with a supreme gift for piano playing, her mother would not permit her to attend a specialist music school. With her mother gone now, Angie struggles with her alcoholism, drinking to get through her shifts at the bar and to take the edge off her feelings.