Description: "Artie Dam is a man with a secret. He goes about his days teaching American history to high schoolers, correcting their casual ignorance, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He spends his free time sailing the beautiful Massachusetts Bay, or with his adult son and his wife of more than three decades - and as Artie does these things, he plans the event that will forever change the world he inhabits. But when a startling accident awakens a new perspective in Artie, and he realizes that life has its own secret it's been keeping from him - along with a lot more to say on the weighty matters of fate and freedom in his home and his country - he charts another course full of grief, hilarity, and heart, to a place where the end marks the beginning. Elizabeth Strout, as we have come to expect, delivers a profound exploration of the human condition - one that brims with deep compassion for each and every one of her characters. With exquisite prose and gentle intimacy, Artie Dam takes one man's fears and loneliness and makes them universal. And in the same breath, captures the mysterious love that sustains and holds us through it all"-- Provided by publisher.
Review Quotes: "Let's hope that this fine author continues steadily along her path, delivering unto her loyal readers story upon story, gift upon gift."--The Guardian
"Strout's capacious empathy and rigorous attention to the nuances of human behavior and psychology are as evident as ever in The Things We Never Say. She has always been unafraid to go to the darkest places in human experience, confronting hideous abuse, unfathomable suffering, and profound despair with unflinching honesty."--The Boston Globe "Strout has a signature ability to make me feel for her characters . . . in her careful, close observations, his depths become increasingly legible. You wish he were not experiencing this pain, but you understand where it is coming from . . . The result is a reading experience of both great warmth and great worry. I don't know anyone else doing it quite like this today."--Chicago Tribune "This is a profound, resplendent novel that stares our present moment in the face while throwing a lifeboat to cling to in the storm."--Financial Times "Strout develops a rich story around the distance between people who think they've fostered a certain intimacy."--Cultured "The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist unveils a fresh setting and troupe of characters that lifts her literary game with energized prose and gimlet-eyed insights."--Time "Strout's masterful novel poses searching questions, yet ultimately gives readers hope."--Shelf Awareness "Strout masterfully explores her central themes (after a 'lunatic' former president is reelected, a clear reference to Trump, Artie feels like the 'country was committing suicide') and offers timeless observations, suggesting, for example, that her characters feel distant from those they love most because 'to say anything real was to say things that nobody wanted to know.'"--Publishers Weekly "Tantalizingly perceptive and compassionate . . . Strout fans will flock to her latest, thrilled to meet new characters in her always compelling fictional universe."--Booklist, starred review "'Mostly we travel through life unsighted, ' he notes in this beautiful tale from Strout (Olive Kitteridge), my all-time favorite author, whose books are often at least partly about how authentic human connections are made by sharing our stories."--AARP "We're all familiar with the concept of being alone in a crowd. But leave it to Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout to find new dimensions to the feeling in this powerful new novel."--Town & Country "I always know I'm in steady hands when reading Elizabeth Strout, whether it's a Lucy Barton book, or one from another of her multiverse. . . . Strout is consistent and satisfying: her writing is . . . always delightful, and illuminates the world in new, brighter colors with every book she writes."--Literary Hub"Strout's decision to start fresh feels like a promise: new characters to obsess over, new quiet devastations to survive. Here, a high school teacher's seemingly settled life is upended by a long-kept secret. Strout will always make ordinary lives feel urgent. New territory just raises the stakes."--Oprah Daily