Olive Kitteridge returns in new Strout novel

A follow-up to Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, titled Olive, Again, will be published by Viking in September 2019.

Publishing director Venetia Butterfield bought UK & Commonwealth rights from Denise Cronin at Random House US, as part of a two-book deal.

Olive, Again will pick up where Olive Kitteridge left off, following the next decade of the heroine’s life in the seaside town of Crosby, Maine. The original novel was published in 2008 and in 2014 became an HBO series which won eight Emmy awards, including a Best Actress for Frances McDormand as Kitteridge.

Strout said: “It turns out, I just wasn’t done with Olive. It was like she kept poking me in the ribs, so I finally said, ‘Okay, okay’."

The theatre adaptation of Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton, starring Laura Linney, is to have a second run at the Bridge Theatre in London in the New Year.