A Quiet Life, Fully Seen

Elizabeth Strout’s The Things We Never Say allows us to do something that remains so elusive in real life: to know what is going on inside someone else’s head.

Artie’s outward life appears modest, even unremarkable, but his inner world is rich with sensitivity, regret, affection and pain. He is not grand or dramatic, and he downplays the accolades he receives for his teaching, much to his wife’s annoyance!

What I love most about the novel is the insightful, luminescent writing. It makes every day of our ordinary lives feel precious. I rushed to then end within 24 hours, all the while knowing I would soon be missing being in this world.

Elizabeth Strout doesn’t worry too much about plot, but that doesn’t mean this novel is a flabby, unstructured mess. It’s the opposite, with a tightly constructed throughline of events triggering responses that deeply affect Artie, his family and his friends. The title feels central to the whole novel. So much of life happens in the space between what we feel and what we manage to say.

The Things We Never Say is a quiet novel, but it packs a hefty punch. What stays with me is the value of Artie’s life – his strong desire for authentic conversations with the people in his life. We share his joy when he experiences this, and suffer with him when it is absent.

I love that some people in his life fully connect with who he really is. To be fully seen is a gift.