Book Club: Elizabeth Strout’s “The Things We Never Say” is our June pick

Arts & Culture, Books

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“As I look back at my work,” novelist Elizabeth Strout observed in a recent interview, I realize that I’ve been increasingly interested in the idea that not only do we not understand other people, we probably don’t know who we are in reference to other people.” And for coach and high school teacher Artie Dam, the protagonist of Strout’s profoundly tender and perceptive latest, The Things We Never Say, that realization has produced an existential despair that leads him to contemplate various ways of killing himself without letting on to his wife and son that he’s died by his own hand. He quietly obsesses over the options, while outwardly maintaining a cheerfulness many view as bordering on dim-witted.
This is a novel about Trump-era instability and angst—a simmering panic about to boil over—and a loneliness felt more deeply when loved but not truly seen. In Artie’s case, he is beloved by his family and entire community of students, colleagues, and friends, yet he shares his suffering with no one. The author has referred to what she is getting at here as “the singularity and mystery of each person,” who “held within themselves a vast, unknowable universe.” (Anyone wondering why Belle Burden’s Strangers has been such a success can stop on that observation.) Miraculously, Strout’s fictional lens nurtures comprehension and compassion—for ourselves and others—a kind of new-born empathy that great novels often produce in a reader. I think this is Strout’s best book since Olive Kitteridge, for which she won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It’s also her most political book. While past novels have made passing references to the cruelty of the Trumpian universe, there’s a whole new level of internalized chaos that Artie, for one, inhabits, as he frantically combs history books for parallels to the rising tide of fascism he sees emerging. Sadly, his state of mind rings as familiar. That Strout also manages to inject humor into these scenarios is another measure of her subtle brilliance.
The Things We Never Say is the Ink Book Club’s June selection, and Elizabeth Strout will be our guest later this month, after she returns from the European leg of her promotional tour. We will announce that date shortly.
Meantime, on Wednesday, May 27 at 12:30 p.m. EDT, we will host a special Ink Book Club Live with Courtney Maum, author of Alan Opts Out, which hits bookstores on June 2. In its starred review, Publishers Weekly called Maum’s satiric novel “a fierce and funny portrait of late-stage capitalism and its limited supply of happiness.”
Maum will also talk to us about her Substack, “Before and After the Book Deal,” and exchange notes on what we’ll be reading this summer. Please join us, and let us know what’s on your TBR pile this season!
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And here are a few of the books I’m taking with me to the Jersey shore to celebrate the long weekend, a mix of advance galleys and finished books.
Below, you’ll find some discussion and reflection prompts to consider. The Ink Book Club’s events are open to all paid subscribers to The Ink. If you haven’t yet become part of our community, join today. And if you’re already a member, consider giving a gift or group subscription.
Subscribe
Give a gift subscription
Get 20% off a group subscription

Book Club: Elizabeth Strout’s “The Things We Never Say” is our June pick

Arts & Culture, Books

Subscribe
“As I look back at my work,” novelist Elizabeth Strout observed in a recent interview, I realize that I’ve been increasingly interested in the idea that not only do we not understand other people, we probably don’t know who we are in reference to other people.” And for coach and high school teacher Artie Dam, the protagonist of Strout’s profoundly tender and perceptive latest, The Things We Never Say, that realization has produced an existential despair that leads him to contemplate various ways of killing himself without letting on to his wife and son that he’s died by his own hand. He quietly obsesses over the options, while outwardly maintaining a cheerfulness many view as bordering on dim-witted.
This is a novel about Trump-era instability and angst—a simmering panic about to boil over—and a loneliness felt more deeply when loved but not truly seen. In Artie’s case, he is beloved by his family and entire community of students, colleagues, and friends, yet he shares his suffering with no one. The author has referred to what she is getting at here as “the singularity and mystery of each person,” who “held within themselves a vast, unknowable universe.” (Anyone wondering why Belle Burden’s Strangers has been such a success can stop on that observation.) Miraculously, Strout’s fictional lens nurtures comprehension and compassion—for ourselves and others—a kind of new-born empathy that great novels often produce in a reader. I think this is Strout’s best book since Olive Kitteridge, for which she won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It’s also her most political book. While past novels have made passing references to the cruelty of the Trumpian universe, there’s a whole new level of internalized chaos that Artie, for one, inhabits, as he frantically combs history books for parallels to the rising tide of fascism he sees emerging. Sadly, his state of mind rings as familiar. That Strout also manages to inject humor into these scenarios is another measure of her subtle brilliance.
The Things We Never Say is the Ink Book Club’s June selection, and Elizabeth Strout will be our guest later this month, after she returns from the European leg of her promotional tour. We will announce that date shortly.
Meantime, on Wednesday, May 27 at 12:30 p.m. EDT, we will host a special Ink Book Club Live with Courtney Maum, author of Alan Opts Out, which hits bookstores on June 2. In its starred review, Publishers Weekly called Maum’s satiric novel “a fierce and funny portrait of late-stage capitalism and its limited supply of happiness.”
Maum will also talk to us about her Substack, “Before and After the Book Deal,” and exchange notes on what we’ll be reading this summer. Please join us, and let us know what’s on your TBR pile this season!
Leave a comment
And here are a few of the books I’m taking with me to the Jersey shore to celebrate the long weekend, a mix of advance galleys and finished books.
Below, you’ll find some discussion and reflection prompts to consider. The Ink Book Club’s events are open to all paid subscribers to The Ink. If you haven’t yet become part of our community, join today. And if you’re already a member, consider giving a gift or group subscription.
Subscribe
Give a gift subscription
Get 20% off a group subscription