Olive Kitteridge

“Retired now, he still wakes early and remembers how mornings used to be his favorite, as though the world were his secret, tires rumbling softly beneath him and the light emerging through the early fog, the brief sight of the bay off to his right, then the pines, tall and slender, and almost always he rode with the window partly open because he loved the smell of pines and the heavy salt air, and in the winter he loved the smell of the cold.”

The opening paragraph of the novel sets the tone for what is to come. In addition to introducing Henry Kitteridge and the idea of the small towns, it establishes the stylistic and thematic cues that will continue throughout the novel. The above quotation is a single sentence, broken into multiple clauses by the frequent commas. This extension of the sentence pulls the reader into Henry’s thoughts, suggesting the sense-laden nostalgia that has gripped the retired pharmacist.

“Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic—you were made to feel guilty about everything.”

After Denise Thibodeau comes to work in Henry’s pharmacy, she tells Henry that she had been in a relationship with a man before her husband, but she admits that it would not have worked out because the man was a Protestant. Henry has already had arguments with Olive, his wife, over whether she will accompany him to church. When Henry looks at Denise, in contrast, he sees a kindly—if plain and boring—young girl who takes her religion seriously.

“‘Oh, sure,’ she said comfortably. ‘What else is there to do?’”

Sitting in the car with Kevin Coulson, Olive touches on the nature of the small town in which they live, nodding toward the theme of The Necessity of Human Connection. The lives of everyone in the small town of Crosby are inextricably interwoven; without much to do in the town, the inhabitants entertain themselves by making sure that they are aware of every detail of every person’s life.