Ep 762 - Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
This is a HeadGum Podcast.

**Craig Getting** (0:05)
Andrew, this episode is brought to you in part by Mint Mobile. When we were kids, summer meant freedom. No more homework, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. But as adults, summer still means freedom, thanks to Mint Mobile's summer sale. Right now, all of Mint Mobile's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited, so free yourself from big wireless and their gimmicks, and their gotchas, and their dirty looks, and switch to Mint for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. Andrew, you use Mint Mobile.

**Andrew Cunningham** (0:37)
I do use Mint Mobile, not just in the summer, but in all the seasons. It has provided me good, reliable, and inexpensive cellular telephone service, and I have not thought about switching since we switched to it.

**Craig Getting** (0:50)
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**SPEAKER_4** (1:39)
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**SPEAKER_5** (2:09)
While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well-told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus these are books you should have read by now.

**Craig Getting** (2:46)
Hey, everybody, welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

**Andrew Cunningham** (2:53)
My name is Andrew.

**Craig Getting** (2:54)
And I have never told my life as a series of short stories set in the town where I grew up, but it could happen.

**Andrew Cunningham** (3:04)
I feel like over the many years that we've known each other, I've kind of gotten.

**Craig Getting** (3:08)
You've gotten a number of them. I've gotten bits and pieces. Yeah.

**Andrew Cunningham** (3:11)
Yeah.

**Craig Getting** (3:11)
I guess what you haven't gotten, though, are stories where I'm a bit player. Have I told you, like, you know what I mean?

**Andrew Cunningham** (3:19)
I guess, no, I guess the stories that you tell me about, you're mostly the main character.
But you don't tell me the things where, like, these people. I mean, that's always really fun, though, right? Is like, you walk by people who are, like, trying to get on the bus, but also having what is clearly the biggest argument they've ever had in their entire life. And you do wonder to yourself, you know, what is their deal? But you don't absorb the entire deal just from being a background character in their lives.

**Craig Getting** (3:51)
It's hard to relay that as a story more than just an image, right? I saw a person wearing a weird hat.
I can't believe that person was dancing that way next to that funny sign that I saw, you know, like...

**Andrew Cunningham** (4:08)
Ice Cream Cone Guy.

**Craig Getting** (4:09)
Ice Cream Cone Guy.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:10)
Ice Cream Cone Guy is back.

**Craig Getting** (4:11)
He's back.
But I can't tell you the beginning, middle, and end of their story because I didn't live it. But maybe if I was a novelist like Elizabeth Strout, I would write a book for our book podcast, where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it. Andrew, what book did I read this week for the show?

**Andrew Cunningham** (4:32)
You read Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

**Craig Getting** (4:35)
I did, in fact.

**Andrew Cunningham** (4:36)
It was a 2008 book that won the 2009 Pulitzer for Fiction Pulitzer Pulitzer.

**Craig Getting** (4:43)
Yeah.

**Andrew Cunningham** (4:44)
Was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Pulitzer judges, Craig said it packs a cumulative emotional wallop bound together by polished prose and by all of the title character. Blunt, flawed and fascinating. Every review of this book that I've read is like, this old battle axe is so full of humanity that you can't help but like her. And so I'm really excited for you to tell me about this old crunchy bra.