In the 3rd chapter of Olive Kitteridge, first selectman Malcom Moody, with whom piano player Angela O'Meara has been carrying on an affair for 22 years, calls her life "pathetic." And at first glance it does seem to be pathetic, if not mundane. Four nights a week she walks in her high-heeled shoes carrying her little blue purse to the Warehouse Bar and Grill where she plays the piano. She lives alone and drinks every night to get through her stage fright. Earlier opportunities for a music scholarship and for a romance with a musician named Simon were thwarted by her mother: "She was Mommy's girl." Added to this, we learn that Angie's mother had "paying customers" when her daughter was young. Pathetic seems like an appropriate description of Angie's life!

But on this night when we meet up with Angie, she has some revelations. Simon shows up unexpectedly at the Bar, relays the fact that her mother offered herself to him years ago in Boston, and says he has pitied her all these years.

Simon's visit and shocking news cause Angie to take an extraordinary step; she calls her lover at home for the first time ever and decides to end the affair. She reflects on her own life and decides it's not so pathetic compared with Simon who is outwardly successful but never became the musician he yearned to be.

So I am left wondering whether angelic Angela is to be pitied or not. When she loses herself in her music, we are told she was always happy. But on the other hand, friends and friendships don't seem to have a place in her life. Is she now punishing her mother for past suffering? After all, why hasn't she told anyone that her mother, now in a nursing home, has bruises on her arm? And how significant is it that she switched from playing Christmas carols to "We Shall Overcome?!"

BTW on p. 49 in this chapter the author refers to the Cook's Corner shopping mall - the location the committee chose for this book.

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