Q & A | 05/13/2009 12:00 am

What It Feels Like to Win the Pulitzer Prize: A Q&A With Novelist Elizabeth Strout

The acclaimed author of Olive Kitteridge talks with wOw’s Joni Evans about what it’s like to win literature’s most prestigious award, who inspires her, what she’s working on next and more.

By Joni Evans

Alert me to Joni's new posts

Elizabeth Strout/Image: Miriam Berkley

Editor’s Note: Last month, Elizabeth Strout was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge, her collection of linked short stories set in small-town Maine. Strout is also the author of the novels Abide with Me, a national bestseller, and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her short stories have been published in many magazines, including The New Yorker and O: The Oprah Magazine.

JONI EVANS: Congratulations on the Pulitzer! What wonderful news.

ELIZABETH STROUT: Oh, thank you, thank you. It’s so wild.

JONI: Are you still dancing?

ELIZABETH: Yes. Yes. I am – not every single second, but …

JONI: Well, we want to talk to you about your amazing book. But first I just wanted to talk about the experience of winning such a prestigious award. I mean, I know Jon Meacham won for American Lion in the nonfiction category. And W.S. Merwin won for poetry. And you, for fiction. How did you first hear?

You know, inside ourselves we’re this huge universe – and yet to somebody else, we’re just a person walking down the street.

ELIZABETH: Well, I was actually in California doing a lecture tour at a number of different literary societies. So I was on my way to the airport in Las Vegas. I had just given a talk and I was going to fly back to California and finish up a few more talks. l had my phone off so the fellow who was driving me to the airport, his phone rang and he looked sort of puzzled. And then he said, “Yes, she’s right here with me.” And he handed me the phone. My agent had tracked me down. Lucy Carson, the daughter of my agent who works at her office, was on the line. She said, “Liz, you’ve won the Pulitzer.” So I was sitting in this car, amazed. I didn’t even know it was coming up. It was totally a surprise. So I just started to scream and the poor guy practically drove off the road.

JONI: Oh, how incredible.

ELIZABETH: [I said to him] “Oh, it’s OK. Nobody’s dead. Nobody’s dead.” So it was really fun.

JONI: Did you know you were on the short list?

ELIZABETH: No. I have no idea how this process is done, and I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. And Lucy’s like, “Liz, everybody … every writer in the country is sitting there watching their Internet at three o’clock.” I said, “Really?” I didn’t know.

JONI: That’s fabulous. Does the Pulitzer come with money? I mean, is there an actual prize?

ELIZABETH: There is a prize. There’s a $10,000 prize.

JONI: Oh, that’s so great. Oh, my God.

ELIZABETH: Yes. And I think there’s a medal.

JONI: One of our wOw editors looked up some statistics and found that your book soared from No. 1200 or something on Amazon to No. 20 in about one second.

ELIZABETH: I know.

JONI: And then Random House announced it was going to publish an additional 100,000 copies, which really speaks to the power of this prize.

ELIZABETH: It really does. It really does.

JONI: I know you’ve won the Art Seidenbaum Award from the Los Angeles Times. You’ve been nominated for PEN/Faulkner awards. I know you’ve won many awards.

ELIZABETH: Yes, Amy and Isabelle did pretty well. But this is fabulous.

7 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

But the gesture, the smooth cupping of the little girl’s head, the way Suzanne’s hand in one quick motion caressed the fine hair and thin neck, has stayed with Olive. It was like watching some woman dive from a boat and swim easily up to the dock. A reminder how some people could do things others could not.

To capture a character, I sometimes pull words, phrases, small bits that allow me to succinctly remember the way the author can - with few words in this case - dilineate her ability to paint a word picture. We find we know not only Olive Kitteridge . . but have a glimpse into the mind of Elizabeth Strout as she writes.

I am one of those readers whose curiosity may make me flip to the inside back cover several times while reading. Why? To glimpse a photo of the author. For when her style, the writing, the characters capture me so well that I find myself saying: How did she do that? How did she pull me in so thoroughly into what was essentially a group of stories — stories whose main character, Olive, I sometimes liked but often didn’t? And yet, truly a book that I find I cannot forget and most hardily recommend.

Thanks to our own resident interviewer, Joni Evans, I have come away with far more than a glimpse at Elizabeth Strout. Written more like a conversation between two women, I feel I somehow "know" this extraordinary writer - whose work has been recognized with the Pulitzer Price - in a very personal way. Olive Kitteridge was its own tour de force, but the interview answered my own questions about all that has gone into the making of Strout’s body of work.

And so I must thank you, Joni, for making Strout come alive for us on these pages … just as thoroughly as the author brings her own characters to life in this compelling book.

By joan larsen on 05/13/2009 3:08 am

e-mail alert

Thank you, Joan. What a nice compliment!

By Joni Evans on 05/13/2009 5:32 pm

e-mail alert

This is the book I’m getting for my beach reading!

By daisygrrlhudsonvalley on 05/13/2009 1:30 pm

e-mail alert

Oh God, that book was fabulous. The humanity in it, the all encompassing strengths and weaknesses of all the characters and the realization that we never really know that much about anybody but that we are all connected in such weird, warped, wonderful ways.

And what Olive did with her daughter-in-law’s shoes??!! ; D Now, that was some crazy passive/agressive behaviour but we see what has come before, the hurt, and what’s worse is we know we, too, could be capable of acting that way no matter what we might say to the contrary.

Strout linked us all together. (as in: forgive us, we know not what we do).

By EileenAlannah on 05/13/2009 1:57 pm

e-mail alert

I read "Olive Kitteridge" when it first came out and thought it was wonderful. I also love — and own — Strout’s earlier book "Amy and Isabelle." Aside from the money and the medal, I hope the Pulitzer pays off in impressive sales of this wonderful book.

By robertawickham on 05/13/2009 6:32 pm