W: Elizabeth, welcome to Waterstones first of all
ES: Thank you lovely to be here.
W: It's great to have you here and I think it's great have Olive back in our lives again.
I think anyone who's read Olive Kitteridge will know her voice and her
character and her mannerisms and I wondered first when was it you started
to hear that voice again demanding to be written about?
ES: Right, well I had never expected to hear it again.
I had never expected for her to reappear in my life but, I don't know,
probably four years ago. I just can't really remember exactly. But I was
sitting in a cafe in Norway and I was just checking my emails and she just
showed up. She just showed up again. And I saw her nosing her car into the marina
and getting out of the car, only this time she had a cane and I
realised, okay, she's older but she was still so Olive. And so I realised I
had to get it down right away because she's Olive and attention
must be paid when Olive shows up! So I did. So I wrote it down quickly and
within a few days I had sketched out that particular chapter called The Poet.
And then I realised, we're back, she's back.
W: Let's talk a bit about actually the form of the books because those chapters are almost sort of separate stories.
ES: Yeah, they're separate stories
W: Why was it that that was the form that the story took?
ES: Because in the original Olive Kitteridge I had written,
I wrote one story, the story at her son's wedding, that was the first story I wrote
in that. And then I realised... I thought I'm gonna write a book called
Olive Stories. But then as I was putting it together I realised you know she's an
awful lot to take on every page. If I was a reader I wouldn't want to see
Olive on every single page. And then I realized that you know I'm always
interested in how people think they know somebody but they really only know a
certain part of them. And then somebody else knows a different part of them.
And so that that got me interested in seeing Olive from different people's points of
view in town. And then they became characters in and of themselves. And so
that's how I wrote that and then when I returned to Olive - because she's episodic.
You know it's like that's what comes through my mind is that she's
episodic and therefore she can only have a certain amount of stage time because she's a lot.
W: And it does allow you I suppose to shine a light or to
put the focus on different people from the same community.
ES: Exactly, and the community itself almost becomes a character. When I sit down to write
I'm always thinking about the character. I'm always concerned with the character
first and foremost. But because people live in a place and time in history then
their place becomes apparent to me, right away. Like when I saw Olive I could see
the trees. I mean she was already in her place. And so the the place
and the landscape become apparent rather quickly. But I do start always with the character.
W: What's really interesting with Olive as a character is in Olive Again a
few other characters sort of begrudgingly I suppose admit that they
always kind of liked her. You know they say I've always thought she was okay.
Because she's seen as this sort of cantankerous old woman but actually
they do like her and I wondered why it was you thought that other people do
actually like her despite the fact that she can be very, very difficult.
ES: Right, well you know it's funny because you only catch little glimpses of people saying
'Well, I always liked her. She may not be everybody's cup of tea but
I always liked her.' And so the person saying that is somebody that I recognize
who will appreciate Olive's qualities as opposed to having been the brunt of her qualities.
W: And you mentioned that when these new stories came to you
that you saw immediately that she was older and this idea of ageing is so
important in the book. And also I suppose tied with it this idea of loneliness. Could you
tell us a little bit more about that?
ES: Well, you know she starts off lonely
because she's lost her husband Henry. And then she gets married to Jack Kennison,
which is like so bizarre in a way. But as I was writing about Jack and Olive, I
realised they actually made a certain kind of sense. They made perfect sense in
a certain kind of way because they were both able to be themselves with each
other. And then she loses Jack. And then she begins to have a different
level of loneliness after that and then at the end she's not as lonely because
she's found a friend. But I think that there are many people in the
world but in my country and I'm sure yours
as well who do end up living alone and find the days longer than they used to find them.
W: There's an interesting conversation she has with a Somali nurse,
where there's a difference in culture where she's talking, this Somali nurse is talking
about how families stay together, whereas in Western societies as
Olive says you know my son gets married he leaves home and that's it.
ES. Yeah, that was true. I mean when I wrote that I realised oh that's actually true.
W: The thing also that struck me as well was there's something
about writing older women - so again when I was filming with another author,
Bernardine Evaristo, who was one of the joint winners of the Booker Prize this
year and she said that the book Girl, Woman, Other, that she had written she
could only have written now that she was older. Because she wanted to write
about older women and she said when you're young authors tend to write old
women is kind of mad old bags and that's all they are. And she needed more
time to think about what it is to be an older woman. You of course were
published when you were in your 40s and you've been writing, I just wondered whether
you felt that that maturity has helped you to write these books.
ES: Absolutely it has. Because you know I've gotten older. And so Olive gets older. I mean
she's older than I am obviously but my understanding of the world and just
watching, because I'm always watching and observing people all the time.
And there are plenty of people, particularly in Maine, and as I said anywhere but you know
in New York they're harder to watch in their homes you know, because they're
on the sidewalk and you can tell oh that person is struggling because
they're older or something like that. But in Maine I have been able to observe
and watch and seen people who are going through these kinds of transitions.
W: Allied to this idea of wisdom
that comes with age is also the capacity to be surprised. Olive is still constantly discovering things.
ES: Exactly, that's right.
W: That's quite an interesting thing throughout the book actually with people being surprised
about what they discover, about even their own family and close friends
ES: Exactly, right, and you know Olive continues to grow in this book. To a real extent
actually. Like when the home health care workers come over
and the Somalian worker comes and then the other woman comes with the, you know,
the bumper sticker, that awful orange-haired man that Olive would
rather die than be seen with that bumper sticker. But Betty, who has
the bumper sticker - it was very interesting for me as I wrote that story
to realize how that story was going to turn out. Because Olive actually she's
upset with Betty but then she realises well Betty has her life.
So tell me about your life, Betty. And I thought oh look at you, Olive! You're
actually, you know, really asking somebody to tell them about their lives and
Betty's says oh, it's just a life and she says well it's your life, I'd like to know.
And so that was an interesting story for me and I realised
that Olive is growing, she's continuing to grow. And she's able to at that point
in her life actually be curious. I mean I think she's always been curious
but you know she's got the wherewithal now to act on it.
W: There's difference between the curiosity of observing somebody and then actually
engaging them in conversation.
ES: Exactly right. And saying tell me. And then the last line of that story I thought
Oh, now it works as a story.