What are the mysteries behind the quiet routines of one Artie Dam, a high school history teacher in Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel? The Things We Never Say explores isolation and the painful, fragile truths we keep hidden because we don't have the words to talk about them. And yet, this luminous novel gives us a lexicon of loneliness that challenges the fundamental idea that we can never truly know each other. Turns out, the beauty is in trying.