Tag: life

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

I was instantly hooked by the epigraph: Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. — Carl Jung

This was the beautifully written, deeply reflective story of Artie Dam — a high school history teacher who spends time considering free will, loneliness, and whether or not anybody can really know anybody else. He watches his own mind a lot — I like that concept. He has been married 34 years, has a grown son who has become more distant, and a deep love for his students who he fears, based on the last election, he is sending out into an unsafe world.

I love the way the author (who is one of my favorites) paints a scene from multiple points of views. We spend a lot of time in Artie’s head, but we also get snapshots of what each of the people in his life think about him simultaneously and why. The elucidation of how we perceive the people around us, how they perceive us, and how we manage to make a connection to them despite this variance is brilliant. I also loved the fluid way Artie reflects on his life — memories precipitated by small events and interactions and the larger social shifting in reaction to the big events — Covid, the 2024 election, and the (ever changing) perceptions of right and wrong.

Political angst is a big piece of the context for Artie and several other key characters. Semi-oblique references to orange hair, cancelled government contracts, ICE “Nazis”, and general loathing for certain personages (you know who they are!) are tossed out without too much discussion. I found this interesting not because I agree or disagree with the view, but because of how having these feelings — justified or not — deeply impacted the characters. I appreciated that the author did include other characters — presented as reasonable and good people — who held either opposing views (they voted for Trump!) or who were simply content to wait and see what actually happened, rather than get too intensely worked up about it. What I loved about this book was that in spite of the angst — both internally and externally induced — the novel was primarily about personal insight and the way that we can have a positive impact on others and work to achieve the contentment and connection that we want. I found this book ultimately uplifting.

Quotes:
“She was unaware — even after their thirty-four years of married life — of the deep pockets of sensitivity that Artie had. And why did she not know? Because she herself did not have those particular sensitivities — and like almost everyone else on this Earth her imagination could not take her fully to another place, even with her husband.”

“So blind we humans are — so blind. To each other and to ourselves, moving through life as though through shadows, putting out a hand in the dark and thinking we have touched someone. And maybe we have, as Artie did with Rhonda Lazarre that day. But mostly we travel through life unsighted, grasping only the smallest details of one another’s selves, including our own. Thinking all the while that we can see.”

“And then she leaned her head against his shoulder, and this is what stabbed Artie now, their innocence, and how badly he wanted — as that elderly woman had — to lean his head against a loving person, to be innocent and incorruptible.”

“And now he knew why. Because to say anything real was to say things that nobody wanted to know. Or if they wanted to know, they would not care in the right way. Or even understand. It was a private thing, to be alive. He understood this now.”

“As he walked slowly up to the bedroom, he thought that now, after all these years, he was finally becoming a grownup. What did he mean by that? That he was finally beginning to understand the multitudinous aspect of people. He was amazed by it, really, now that he thought about it. In his study of history, he had learned about the leaders, and the various groups involved, but he had some how missed this fact about every single person: that they held within themselves a vast, unknowable universe. And he understood that it could make a person lonely; people had to take and give to one another whatever they could. If it was not enough … Well, then it meant one just had to be a grownup.”

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 5th, 2026.

The Satisfaction Cafe by Kathy Wang (Fiction)

Joan’s whole life — from Taiwan to California, through relationships and motherhood, to a late-life plunge into a unique business — surprises her. In this life story, told in a blunt manner free from the kind of artifice that filters most of the stories we read and hear (dare I say personal branding?), we follow her as she learns what is important, accepts what she needs to, and continues in her search for satisfaction and meaning. I love her voice and the honesty with which she contemplates the life she is leading — it is remarkably free of hand-wringing, self-flagellation, and other neuroses which seem to plague a lot of modern novels (IMHO).

I enjoyed the variety of ways opportunities (the surprises) arose. Some were serendipitous; some were created by Joan herself, through personal will; some were the roads not taken, which gave rise to regret, but also reflection and growth. In many ways, I felt that this book followed a whole life arc, rather than a narrative one. I really liked the concept behind the Satisfaction Cafe — a place where people go to be heard and understood — and I equally enjoyed the full process that took her there. But mostly, I liked it for the reason specified by the last line of the marketing blurb: “Vivid, comic, and intensely moving, The Satisfaction Café is a novel about found family, the joy and loneliness that come with age, and how we can give ourselves permission to seek satisfaction and connection at any stage of life.”

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 1st, 2025.

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Literary Fiction)

This is (yet another) beautiful and deeply thoughtful book by Elizabeth Strout, featuring two of our favorite characters from Crosby, Maine: Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge (who until this book have not actually met). With plenty of small town plot, including an actual dead body mystery and a “different” sort of affair, this takes us through samplings of post-Covid Crosby life in lively detail.

In truth it is all about connection, knowing yourself and others, and the joy of being allowed to be genuine. (As an aside, I feel like it is harder and harder to meet people who immediately feel genuine — possibly because our culture requires people to curate their presentation so very carefully). It’s about loneliness and the comfort we receive from even the tiniest “real” connections. It’s about the nature of a real friend who makes you feel not alone, regardless of how often you see them, talk to them, or what they do for you. While some of the story takes place in the present, there are many interludes in the form of Lucy’s “stories of unrecorded lives” which she and Olive exchange. Lucy (and Elizabeth Strout) is a writer and these stories are therefore no longer unrecorded. Also a great new phrase for me: “Sin eater.” Some people eat the sins of others… It’s an interesting concept and you can learn more by reading the book. A bit of a slow start but that’s more about the mood you’re in when you sit down to read. Come to it in a meditative and curious state.

Some quotes (plus the last line — as always — is great but I can’t include it here):

“Didn’t anyone ever have anything interesting to say? They talked of movies they were all watching, of series on Netflix, they spoke about their children, but always carefully and in terms meant to hide their private disappointments, and they talked about one another. Of course.”

“I mean, we don’t ever really know another person. And so we make them up according to when they came into our lives, and if you’re young, as many people are when they marry, you have no idea who that person really is. And so you live with them for years, you have a house together, kids together. But even if you marry someone later in life. no one knows who another person is. And that is terrifying.”

“…because nobody can go into the crevices of another’s mind, even the person can’t go into the crevices of their own mind, and we live — all of us — as though we can.”

“And yet, as is often the case, those of us who need love so badly at a particular moment can be off-putting to those who want to love us, and to those who do love us. Bob, as he looked at her — she seemed like a beached sea animal to him with her eyes that had almost disappeared — he did love her, he did.”

“Solzhenitsyn said the point of life is the maturity of the soul.”

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 10th, 2024.