The Things We Never Say

By: Elizabeth Strout

Narrator: Robert Petkoff

Random House Audio

ISBN: 9798217154746

Publisher: Random House

Publication Date: 05/05/2026

Format: Hardcover

My Rating: 5 Stars (ARC)

MAY 2026 MUST-READ BOOKS

Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout’s new novel tells the story of a chance incident that sparks a powerful realization in a beloved teacher’s life—a poignant meditation on loneliness, friendship, parenthood, and the importance of truth in a capsizing world.

Artie Dam is living a double life. He spends his days teaching history to eleventh graders, 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 neighbors, 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?

And 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.

Elizabeth Strout, as we have come to expect, delivers a moving exploration of the human condition—one that brims with compassion for each and every one of her indelible characters. With exquisite prose and profound insight, The Things We Never Say takes one man’s fears and loneliness and makes them universal. And in the same breath, captures the abiding love that sustains

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My Review

A poignant meditation on loneliness, friendship, parenthood, and the importance of truth in a capsizing world.

Set in coastal Massachusetts during the summer of 2024, THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY by Elizabeth Strout (favorite), follows 57-year-old history teacher Artie Dam as a long-buried family secret disrupts his quiet, post-pandemic life.

Artie is secretly planning a suicide that will look like an accident, driven by a growing sense of loneliness and a world he perceives as "gone mad".

To his students and neighbors, he seems like a stable teacher, but his inner world is chaotic and hidden. He is guilt-ridden, and much of his internal life is consumed by shame over his son’s past and his own impulses.

Throughout the book, Artie obsessively questions the concept of free will and whether our lives are predetermined or if we have agency in our choices.

My thoughts...

Strout at her most "lucidly bleak"—a masterpiece that reminds us every person we think we know is actually a vast, unknowable universe.

The immersive story returns us to the quiet, piercing observations of human nature. It’s classic Strout—understated, deeply moving, and focused on the "unsaid" moments that define a life. It feels very intimate and character-driven.

Politics

Politics is a central, driving force, making it Strout’s most overtly political novel to date. The story is set against the backdrop of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, and the prevailing atmosphere of national division serves as a mirror for the protagonist's personal isolation.

~Public Figures:

References to commentary on Trump and Musk

~Social Issues:

Themes of antisemitism, racism, and the actions of ICE are woven into the characters' internal monologues and observations.

The story centers on the "accretion of loneliness" in a post-pandemic, post-election world where people feel disconnected from their closest relationships. Artie, a 57-year-old teacher in Massachusetts, is facing his own despair, which is compounded by the unsettling political landscape

Highlights/Characters:

Artie Dam is the heart of the book—beloved by students but drowning in an accretion of loneliness.

The Vibe:

Melancholy, tender, and unremittingly honest. It’s a "Blue State book that captures the quiet terror of modern living.

Themes:

The pervasive nature of shame, our "irreducible loneliness," and the fragility of free will.

The Author's Writing:

Strout’s sparse, surgical precision remains unparalleled. Strout uses simple, direct language to convey deep emotional complexity. Luminous, her prose finds beauty in the mundane details of everyday life. Incisive, she possesses a sharp ability to "cut through" social politeness to show what characters are actually thinking. Observational and introspective, the narrative feels like a quiet study of human behavior and small gestures.

Mood:

~Quietly Devastating

~Introspective

~Atmospheric

~Tender

Despite the heavy themes of suicide and political dread, there is a core of empathy for human frailty.

Audiobook MVP:

Robert Petkoff, who handles Artie’s existential stocktaking with a steady, empathetic dignity.

Verdict:

A hauntingly accurate portrayal of the "unsaid" moments that both bridge and divide us.

Takeaway:

"To say anything real is to say things that nobody wants to know".

Recs:

Timely and relevant, a must-read for fans of Olive Kitteridge or anyone who values "up-lit" with a dark, realistic edge

Special thanks to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks

My Rating: 5 Stars

Pub Date: May 5, 2026

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Praise

“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

“’I wonder why people never say anything real,’ Artie Dam says to his wife after a party. The longtime, very beloved high school teacher is unaccountably lonely, a feeling that’s exacerbated when a secret about his family comes to light. It throws his world upside down and gobsmacks him with the realization of how little we know about other people (or ourselves, for that matter). ‘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. Strout’s story follows high school teacher Artie Dam, who seems to have made a pleasant life for himself—a time-tested marriage, a large group of friends, a sailboat for goodness sake—until a revelation upends it all and makes him consider just how powerful his connections have really been.”

—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

“Revered for her deeply empathetic and perceptive approach, Strout creates existentially complex interior worlds for seemingly simple characters . . . Tantalizingly perceptive and compassionate glimpses into the backstories of the key contributors to Artie’s crisis of the soul will give readers hope that these indelible individuals will one day appear in a trademark Strout spin-off of their own.”

—Booklist, starred review

About the Author

Elizabeth Strout was born in Portland, Maine, and grew up in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire. From a young age she was drawn to writing things down, keeping notebooks that recorded the quotidian details of her days. She was also drawn to books, and spent hours of her youth in the local library lingering among the stacks of fiction. During the summer months of her childhood she played outdoors, either with her brother, or, more often, alone, and this is where she developed her deep and abiding love of the physical world: the seaweed covered rocks along the coast of Maine, and the woods of New Hampshire with its hidden wildflowers.

During her adolescent years, Strout continued writing avidly, having conceived of herself as a writer from early on. She read biographies of writers, and was already studying – on her own – the way American writers, in particular, told their stories. Poetry was something she read and memorized; by the age of sixteen was sending out stories to magazines. Her first story was published when she was twenty-six.

Strout attended Bates College, graduating with a degree in English in 1977. Two years later, she went to Syracuse University College of Law, where she received a law degree along with a Certificate in Gerontology. She worked briefly for Legal Services, before moving to New York City, where she became an adjunct in the English Department of Borough of Manhattan Community College. By this time she was publishing more stories in literary magazines and Redbook and Seventeen. Juggling the needs that came with raising a family and her teaching schedule, she found a few hours each day to work on her writing. WEBSITE