The Things We Never Say

Artie Dam is a man with a secret. He goes about his days teaching American history to high schoolers and lending a kind word to those who need it. 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, he charts another course full of grief, hilarity and heart, to a place where the end marks the beginning.

Elizabeth Strout delivers a profound exploration of the human condition, brimming with compassion for her characters. With exquisite prose and gentle intimacy, Artie Dam takes one man’s loneliness and makes it universal. And in the same breath, captures the mysterious love that sustains us through it all.