The Things We Never Say

“It was a private thing to be alive.”

Elizabeth Strout has always been extraordinary at locating enormous emotional consequences inside seemingly ordinary lives. The Things We Never Say considers the secrets, regrets, desires, and silences that accumulate between people over time. What we say shapes our relationships. What we don’t say does too.

I am fascinated by what people choose to tell one another and what they choose to keep to themselves. Artists make those choices too. What gets left outside the frame? What is erased, covered, obscured, or deliberately never shown? Absence is not necessarily an omission. It can be a decision. What we don’t see can determine how we experience everything that we do.