“The Things We Never Say” by Elizabeth Strout
With her latest book, Elizabeth Strout once again introduces us to someone we are moved by, sympathize with, and grow to care about. From Olive Kitteridge to Lucy Barton to Bob Burgess, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Strout has the exceptional ability, with deceptively simple prose, to breathe life into her characters.
The story is set in a small coastal town in Massachusetts and centers on 57-year-old history teacher Artie Dam. It’s contemporary America — a post-pandemic world with a politically divided country. Beloved by students, long-married, and living in a comfortable home, Artie’s life seems ideal from the outside — but approaching his 60s, he feels a profound sense of loneliness and is deeply depressed. He secretly considers suicide.
While grappling with his personal crisis, Artie frequently asks others if they believe in free will — whether people truly control their choices. When someone reveals a damaging, long-held secret to him, he comes to realize that “everything in the world seemed to be filled with unspoken truths,” and even those very close to him don’t really know one another.
Strout explores how those secrets can isolate us and prevent real connections between friends, parents and their children, and husbands and wives. There’s sadness in this novel, but ultimately an elevating message about the enduring legacy of kindness and goodness, and truth.
“London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth” by Patrick Radden Keefe
In 2019, when a young man plunges off a high-rise balcony to his death in the River Thames, the police are quick to rule the incident a suicide of a “profoundly depressed,” drug-addicted 19-year-old. Devastated parents Rachelle and Matthew Brettler are shocked by the conclusion and left to search for the truth behind Zac Brettler’s death.
The investigation unearths the secret life of Zac, who posed as Zac Ismailov, the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, and lived a falsely glamorous life of posh mansions and private nightclubs while becoming entangled with the seedy underworld of Russian gangsters and career criminals.
Author Patrick Radden Keefe’s (“Empire of Pain”) latest nonfiction book, “London Falling,” has already been called one of the best books of the year so far by The New York Times and The New Yorker. It is the compelling account of the failed inquiry. Keefe spotlights the “slipshod” Metropolitan Police investigation, attributed to incompetence, understaffing, as well as independent findings identifying it as institutional corruption. It’s a chilling and absorbing chronicle of a family’s quest to uncover the mystery of what really happened to their son.
“Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage” by Belle Burden
A handsome and successful hedge-fund husband, a cozy family life with summers in their Martha’s Vineyard home — what seemed like an enviable marriage to most, including Belle Burden — suddenly falls apart after 20 years when her partner abruptly announces he’s not happy and leaves. It’s the beginning of the pandemic, and Burden, still in love with her husband, is left to cope with the heartbreak of what just happened to her and her family. Why did he leave and were there signs?
In a blunt and riveting memoir, Burden reckons with the emotional, social, and financial fallout of her divorce. Searching for answers, she reflects on her marriage, her husband’s affair, and his anxious search for their pre-nuptial agreement. As the granddaughter of the famed New York socialite Babe Paley and a descendant of the Vanderbilt family, her lineage makes for sensational reading. An instant bestseller, the book is already in its ninth printing, and Netflix has secured Gwyneth Paltrow to portray her. In interviews, Burden underscores her story’s message — the importance of financial literacy for women in marriage — no matter how happy you think you are.
“Whistler” by Ann Patchett
With “Whistler,” Ann Patchett, who has written some of my most memorable reads, including “Bel Canto” (PEN/Faulkner award) and “The Dutch House,” returns with another deeply affecting story about memory and love.
A chance encounter in a museum reestablishes a relationship between a daughter and her former stepfather, who disappeared from her life when she was 9 years old. Daphne, now in her 50s, and Eddie, 76, reunite years after a traumatic incident separated them. Their meeting renews an indelible bond formed decades earlier that has endured over time. Patchett delves into how secrets, the past, and the choices we make can quietly shape our relationships and our lives. But even amid reflective loss, the desire for the truth may still leave room for second chances.
