Olive, Again

Jack Kennison is Olive’s second husband. Strout had introduced him in an earlier book, Olive Kitteridge, as a man who Olive initially despises and then connects with. Jack is a patient man who understands Olive. He values her honesty, and his easygoing attitude serves as a good counterbalance to Olive’s anxious, irritable manner. He experiences some of the same revelations that Olive does, both reinforcing and amplifying the book’s prevailing themes.

Jack represents the kind of person that Olive most is prejudiced against: He is wealthy, highly educated, and comes from outside of Maine. Yet Jack loves Olive for her forthright nature. He understands her rude and callous behavior for what it is—the defenses of a very anxious, sensitive woman. He is intelligent, insightful, and finds relief in her blunt honesty, a sentiment echoed by many of the other characters. He claims, “she had—if felt to him—saved his life” (9).

Jack deals with his own prejudices and bigotry, which Olive forces him to confront—against his daughter, who is gay, and the Somali population that lives in Shirley Falls. Jack also confronts his changing perceptions of his past self and his marriage. His realization that Betsy had a long-running affair with a man she had been in love with guts him and changes his perception of the past, as well as his opinion of his own intelligence and insightfulness. Strout explores two of her main themes through Jack—the question of Identity: Do We Ever Really Know Ourselves? And Human Connection: Do We Ever Really Know Each Other? Jack struggles with whether one can ever truly know another person, or even oneself. In the end, Jack realizes that he never really knew himself, and has no way to judge himself.

Cindy Coombs is the protagonist of “Light,” the sixth story in Olive, Again. Cindy is undergoing cancer treatment and, at the time of the story’s events, has a fifty percent chance of survival. She is married to Tom, and has two grown sons. The reader comes to understand that Cindy is telling this story from a future time and that she has, apparently, survived. In “Light,” Cindy and Olive become friends. Olive is one of the few people who visit Cindy.

Before she got sick, Cindy was a librarian at the local library. She is a book lover, but finds herself too sick to read. She admires another local poet—not just for her poetry, but for her brutal honesty in writing about her mother. Cindy herself wanted to be a poet when she was younger, and her admiration of the light in February shows her sensitivity. This is a point on which she and Olive connect—Olive, too, can see the beauty of the February light.

Cindy is angry at her situation, but works through it. Her conversations with Olive help her to see things from perspectives other than her own. Olive helps her to empathize with what Tom is going through, something that Cindy has not been able to do. Olive also reminds Cindy that everyone is going to die, and Cindy highly values this characteristic bluntness. With Olive willing to confront life’s uncomfortable truths directly, Cindy is able to do the same.

Fergus MacPherson is the protagonist of “The End of Civil War Days,” the eleventh story in the collection. Fergus, an older man of Scottish ancestry, lives in Crosby. He has begun wearing a kilt around town and enjoys when people ask him about it, or share stories of their own Scottish ancestry. Fergus notices that people have become more tolerant of his kilt, but does not connect that to the issue he is preoccupied with, the idea that the world is changing. He feels he does not understand the world anymore, which is compounded when his daughter tells him she is a dominatrix. He also does not connect his enjoyment of educating people about Scottish or Civil War history with Lisa’s desire to educate people about her work and passion.

Fergus and his wife, Ethel, have been estranged, but living in the same house, for the past thirty-five years after Fergus’s affair. Fergus and Ethel live their separate lives, but as the story continues, they begin to draw together. Fergus also connects with his friend, Anita, who tells him stories about her children. Fergus’s struggle illustrates the fear that can dominate one’s life when the world feels beyond understanding or control. Fergus and Ethel both transform. As they feel more uncertain about things happening around them, they cross into each other’s space. The uncertainty of life, the overwhelming pace and difference of the world they now live in, strengthens their connection.