Our Review… Elizabeth Strout is at the height of her powers in this beautiful and quietly devastating novel centred on Artie Dam, a sensitive and hugely popular high school history teacher whose outwardly full life masks a profound loneliness. Around him orbit an extraordinary cast of characters – his sharp-edged wife Evie, his adored son Rob, his beloved students, and a circle of eccentric friends and colleagues – all rendered with the compassion, insight and emotional precision that have become Strout’s signature. Yet beneath the quiet rhythms of ordinary life lies a devastating family secret, one of the “things we never say”, and Artie finds himself emotionally adrift in a world that suddenly feels fragile and uncertain. In Artie, Strout has created one of her most moving characters yet … flawed, tender-hearted and profoundly human. This novel feel very real…set in the very recent past of 2024, the novel threads through the anxieties and fractures of contemporary US – the fallout of the Trump election, looming ICE raids, and the shadow of the Gaza war – without ever losing sight of the intimate emotional terrain that Strout navigates so brilliantly. For such a slim novel, The Things We Never Say carries extraordinary emotional weight, drawing haunting parallels between Artie’s fragile inner world and the state of America itself. It may well be Strout’s finest novel yet – profound, compassionate and utterly unforgettable. A magnificent novel. Review by Nicole
