Literary Fiction · Free kit
The Things We Never Say
Artie Dam is fifty-seven, a well-liked high school history teacher in a coastal Massachusetts town in 2024, the man who sails on weekends and still cannot quite believe he lives in his wife's inherited house by the water. Inside, he feels cut off from Evie, now a family therapist, and from their son Rob, withdrawn since a crash ten years earlier. Elizabeth Strout's Booker Prize 2026 shortlisted novel is spare, political, and quietly devastating: a portrait of loneliness, the things a family will not name, and what happens when a long-buried secret finally reaches the person it was kept from.
“I wonder why people never say anything real.”
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Plan your meeting
The Things We Never Say This or That
Answer in under three seconds. No wrong answers — only revealing ones.
1 / 40
Rapid fire (60 seconds)
Read these aloud as fast as the group can shout answers.
- 1. Sailboat or Dinghy?
- 2. Tuesday dinner or Thursday dinner?
- 3. White socks or Old-man sneakers?
- 4. Grand piano, no lessons or Harbor, no talking?
- 5. Clam chowder or Blueberry muffin?
- 6. Ocean house or Basement in Revere?
- 7. Tea at the table or Coffee before class?
- 8. Lined paper, two pages or A hallway hello?
- 9. Lemonade on the deck or Sparkling water by the dock?
- 10. Fog burning off or Heatwave June?