Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through Elizabeth Strout's eyes, it's the whole world. And the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama -- desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.
Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance . . . a former student who has lost the will to live . . . Olive's own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities . . . and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.