Olive Kitteridge

Set in the fictional coastal town of Crosby, Maine, Elizabeth Strout's book is built from 13 interrelated stories, with Olive Kitteridge at the centre of some and passing through others. Olive, a retired schoolteacher, is by turns stern, patient, sharp and in denial. She resents how her town and the wider world are shifting but does not always notice how those near her change: a lounge pianist haunted by an old love affair, a one-time pupil who no longer wants to live, her grown son, who feels crushed by her moods, and her husband Henry, the town pharmacist, for whom loyalty to their marriage is both a gift and a burden. It won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Alina Varlanuta, creator of The Hole in Your Head, counts its flawed and broken heroine among her favourite characters.