Elizabeth Strout’s Booker-longlisted novel The Things We Never Say follows Artie Dam, a popular history teacher in coastal Massachusetts whose personal loneliness and growing despair mirror the anxieties of his pupils and the wider political climate. The review argues that the novel compellingly links private grief, marital estrangement and fears about a divisive leader’s re-election, creating a portrait of a decent man facing an existential crisis.

Artie’s troubled marriage to therapist Evie is shaped by the aftermath of their son Rob’s car crash a decade earlier, which killed his girlfriend Heather. As Artie considers suicide, events during a sailing trip and a later revelation from Rob begin to change his outlook; actor Robert Petkoff’s narration is praised for conveying both Artie’s kindness and quiet despair. The audiobook’s central insight is that every person contains an unknowable inner life.