Literary Friction - Returning with Elizabeth Strout

From William Faulkner to John Updike, and Hilary Mantel to Margaret Atwood, why do authors return to the same characters and places again and again? What can a trilogy do that a solo book can’t? And why do we get so excited (and nervous) about these returns? To help us answer these questions, this month we have a very special guest: the inimitable, Pulitzer prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout. Her latest novel, Olive, Again, is a return to the complicated character of Olive Kitteridge and her community in Crosby, Maine.

Recommendations on the theme, Returning:

Octavia: Everything Under by Daisy Johnson https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1110035/everything-under/9781784702113.html

Carrie: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld http://www.curtissittenfeld.com/books/eligible/buy-the-book/

General Recommendations:

Octavia: Be My Guest by Priya Basil https://canongate.co.uk/books/3072-be-my-guest-reflections-on-food-community-and-the-meaning-of-generosity/

Elizabeth: Tolstoy by Henri Troyat and Tolstoy by A.N. Wilson https://groveatlantic.com/book/tolstoy/; https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780393321227

Carrie: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/118610/hateship-friendship-courtship-loveship-marriage-by-alice-munro/

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