Finding the extraordinary in ordinary people

By Philippa Tracy

Elizabeth Strout has written a number of best-selling literary novels, featuring complex and recurring characters in small-town America. These include Olive Kitteridge, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. Having read and enjoyed Olive Kitteridge and a number of her other novels, I read her debut Amy and Isabelle, first published in 1998.

This novel is set in the fictional mill town of Shirley Falls in Maine. Strout herself grew up in Maine and this is where many of her novels are set.