The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

AUTHOR:                             

PUBLISHER:                   Random House

PUBLICATION DATE: 2026

REVIEWER:                      Anne Kerslake Hendricks

Elizabeth Strout, author of Olive Kitteridge and the related novels, is a superb writer whose characters reveal surprising and challenging truths about human nature. In The Things We Never Say, Strout introduces middle-aged Artie Dam – an introspective, sociable, complex man who’s a high-school teacher, a sailor, and a long-married father of an adult son. Artie moves in many different circles and sometimes struggles to make sense of life, although he understands that “He was, in many ways, the embodiment of the American dream”. Strout explores themes of family, friendship, and forgiveness, internal and external politics, the weight of responsibilities, and the concept of free will.

The novel is set on the east coast of Massachusetts, where Artie and his wife Evie live in an inherited ocean-side home on a private road. Strout offers evocative descriptions of the area, particularly in scenes where Artie goes sailing.

The glory of being back on the water and the sea around him sparkling and the sails billowing and the sky a bright blue—it was unspeakably beautiful with the foliage now changing along most parts of the shore, and Artie sat at the tiller and kept saying quietly, “My God. My God.”

Although there’s beauty and humour throughout the book, there’s also despair, betrayal, and loss. There are unexpected deaths – including by suicide – and many passages that prompt self-reflection. Is it true that people frequently die of loneliness? How well do we know the people we spend the most time with? Can we (and should we) ever know what others think of us?

All of us live with a huge blind spot before our eyes, meaning that no matter what we think we know we can never fully understand how we appear to others.

Strout takes us deep into Artie’s inner world as a partner, father, teacher, and friend. She also captures shifts and developments in the wider world, with references to ChatGPT, burner phones and encrypted email, the pandemic, Israel and Gaza. A solitary line and a half on an otherwise empty page reports on election outcomes in the USA.

 The election came and went. Half of the country was stunned, the

other half jubilant.

Strout avoids naming certain politicians, although her political views are revealed by her characters. One observes to Artie that people crave authority, particularly when it is evident in a “cult following kind of way”.  Artie’s son, post-election, is blunter: “Dad, we’re fucked.”

Despite Artie’s personal thoughts about the election results, he continues to abide by family ‘rules’ that prevent him from sharing his political views with his students.

…my mother taught me to never discuss sex, politics, or the state of one’s bowels.

Although Artie sometimes behaves unpredictably, he’s also a creature of habit. He knows what – and who – can soothe and calm him. He’s a (mostly) loyal friend, and a father with a great love for his son despite disclosures that have the potential to disrupt or even sever their relationship. The evening following the election, Artie receives a text from his son and sits at the piano to play a self-composed piece that reaffirms the strength of their bond.

It was slow and sad, and as he played he understood it was two things: a requiem for the world, and a love song to his son.

Throughout the novel Strout’s writing is insightful and engaging, covering factual as well as philosophical topics. She suggests, for example, that a collective classroom identity emerges from the individual personalities of the students. We learn that both boats and bushes in coastal Massachusetts are wrapped for protection against harsh winter conditions. Strout observes that the secrets of adults are both “serious and sad”.

I love her description of the maternal influence on swearing habits.

“Fuck.” Rob said this as his mother would, with that wonderful thwack of a well-struck tennis ball.

Strout includes a subtle nod to Olive Kitteridge when Artie recalls how much Evie had loved a book “about a crotchety old woman from Maine”, a book he had read “reluctantly” only because Evie had liked it.

It’s inevitable as we age that people begin to disappear from our lives. Some die, others drift or move away, some appear to vanish into thin air. Through Artie, we gain insight into how others may respond to such losses, how they move forward after a crisis or upheaval, and how strength is drawn from friendship as well as the compassion of strangers.

What are the things you never say, and are they sometimes best left unsaid? The last words of this review belong to Artie, when he wonders why people never say anything real.

…now he knew why. Because to say anything real was to say things that nobody wanted to know. Or if they wanted to know, they would not care in the right way. Or even understand.

                It was a private thing, to be alive. He understood this now.