{"product_id":"the-things-we-never-say","title":"The Things We Never Say","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInternationally bestselling and prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout's new novel tells the story of a chance incident in a man's life - a poignant meditation on loneliness, friendship, and free will in a capsizing world.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSusan's Review\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eThousands of readers over the years have eagerly followed the fictional lives created by American author Elizabeth Strout. In the course of a series of novels, Strout has depicted the modest writer Lucy Barton, the curmudgeonly Olive Kitteridge and the sometime lawyer Bob Burgess so intimately that readers speak of knowing them better than they know people in real life. Focused on white, working-class small-town America, Strout’s fiction has a recognisably ‘homespun’ air through which we feel we are overhearing, rather than reading about, the characters thoughts and feelings. This kind of artless art, a form of literary gossip if you will, has garnered Strout continuing critical and commercial success.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI confess, however, to having tired of Strout’s inclination to cover the same ground: the joys and disappointments, the fears and desires, of so-called ordinary people. I was in truth expecting much the same with her latest, and eleventh, novel. Why not stick to a winning formula, after all? But \u003cem\u003eThe Things We Never Say\u003c\/em\u003e is much more ambitious in scope than Strout’s more recent novels, and it left me awash with tears (always one of my favourite reading experiences). While Strout still knows how to tell a good story, her new novel is more concerned with middle-class experience and is more explicitly political. Set in the beautiful Massachusetts Bay in the run-up to the 2024 US federal election and the subsequent second Trump presidency, the novel charts the gradual unravelling of a man’s sense of purpose and meaning. Its narrative meanders, loops backwards and forwards in time, before arriving at an unexpected and devastating conclusion. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArtie Dam is a devoted, much-loved and optimistic high-school teacher: a character type that in Strout’s skilful hands never lapses into sentimentality or idealisation. (Teachers or former teachers will particularly enjoy Artie’s deft handling of “difficult” students and his words of encouragement for the outsiders). Originally from a working-class family, Artie has “married up,” and happily, to the economically privileged Evie. But notes of disquiet soon creep into his seemingly idyllic life: he feels increasingly uncomfortable living in the splendidly spacious house bequeathed by Evie’s parents thirty years ago, and more and more hollowed out by the small talk of his wife, colleagues and acquaintances. As the novel’s title makes clear, at the heart of the narrative are wilful suppressions and shameful silences, and the anguished sense of isolation that ensues. We learn early in the story of the trauma which Artie, Evie and their adult son Rob are trying in their different ways to overcome. As a seventeen-year-old, Rob drove the car involved in an accident which killed his girlfriend; while Evie subsequently trains as a therapist and Rob withdraws from his parents, Artie contemplates different ways to commit suicide. Even more shattering is the discovery of his son’s secret, one that will radically change his sense of self and his belief in the possibility of free will. Artie discovery of catastrophes, both personal and political, further undermines his belief in the justice and goodness of the world. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd yet for all this despair and cynicism, The Things We Never Say retains a tentatively hopeful vision of life. Characters fail to understand one another, characters disappoint one another, but there is also great kindness and compassion. Seen mainly through Artie’s eyes, we come to know him, and to a lesser extent, his family and friends, in a way that reinforces the pathos of the unsaid. Strout’s use of dialogue is rich with subtext: characters speak their surface self, while unwilling or unable to express their genuine feelings and needs. And in the wider political context of cruelty and corruption, Artie’s enduring integrity is ultimately the genuine moral beacon for the world which America has long claimed to be.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Elizabeth Strout began her writing career with a long string of rejections. Undaunted, she ended up winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her third novel \u003cem\u003eOlive Kitteridge\u003c\/em\u003e. She has given many readers the pleasure of getting to know her maddening, loveable, eccentric, sometimes thoroughly unlikeable characters. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a twelfth novel that picks up the story of \u003cem\u003eThe Things We Never Say\u003c\/em\u003e. I for one will be reading it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher blurb\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArtie Dam is a man with a secret. He spends his days teaching history to high schoolers, expanding their young minds, correcting their casual cruelties, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He goes to holiday parties with his wife of three decades, makes small talk with neighbours, and, on weekends, takes his sailboat out on the beautiful Massachusetts Bay. He is, by all appearances, present and alive. But inside, Artie is plagued by feelings of isolation. He looks out at a world gone mad-at himself and the people around him-and turns a question over and over in his mind- how is it that we know so little about one another, even those closest to us?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd then, one day, Artie learns that life has been keeping a secret from him, one that threatens to upend his entire world. Once he learns it, he is forced to chart a new course, to reconsider the relationships he holds most dear-and to make peace with the mysteries at the heart of our existence.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Elizabeth Strout","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":62792517583007,"sku":null,"price":34.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0394\/7236\/5727\/files\/9780241814307.jpg?v=1778753215","url":"https:\/\/lanebook.com.au\/products\/the-things-we-never-say","provider":"The Lane Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}