(Please see this entry for more about the book.) The review: So the world has finally received a solid academic monograph about Elizabeth Strout’s works, which, as far as I know, is the first of...
First paragraphs: The use of absence in the short story cycle is an overlooked but vital element of the genre.1 It contributes to the way that cycles can manipulate the focus in their stories, using...
First paragraphs: Text and film are typically framed by liminal spaces or borders where the reader or viewer enters and/or leaves the narrative world, i.e. openings and endings. Generally speaking, openings introduce the reader to...
Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge consists of thirteen interrelated chapters, each one involving to some degree the novel’s eponymous character. Readers are presented to Olive both mediated through other characters’ viewpoints, and with more seemingly direct access into...
The first component of the thesis is a composite novel called Cult which falls into two parts with seven narratives in each. Part 1 tracks the protagonist, Ellen, from her first involvement with the cult...