want to talk about freedom? 

Elizabeth Strout: The things we never say.

The newest Strout and as being one of those readers who read all her books, of course I read this, too, even though even from the starting to read this book, I kind of missed Olive and Lucy. 

Okey, there was no Olive nor Lucy in this book and maybe that was my biggest issue in this book. 

There is Artie, who was a bit of a tiring man, and there is his wife who I got not to know a lot, there is his son, who remained a bit distant, too and …… you get the picture… there were a (too wide) a bunch of people around Artie Dam and his day to day life as a historic professor and his and his wife´s social circle and I needed depth. I also found a bit of a struggle to keep up with the characters but even that was not my biggest struggle with this book. 

Of course, without a doubt, Strout ´s writing is a s sublime as it has ever been, her talent of telling a story, a building a web of characters and visualizing the "normal" everyday life is beyond almost any other writer (living), 

yet this was a bit of a dissapointment to me. 

There was too much of pointing with a finger, of "educating the reader". Artie is confused of the state of the world, he has questins no one want to dig deep with him and still I felt that Strout left the reader, too, a bit hanging. 

What was it with the outcome of the election that got people crying 48 hours, what was the big fear, …. Yes, we all know that, yet still, Strout could have gone out with the answers, too?  (but that would have made her too political?) 

What was it what they feared and then, the biggest question in the book - what do we really know about each other ? Not much, that could be the answer since we just smile, keep silent, act and maybe that is the world today, maybe that is the America (today), maybe that is what Strout wanted to say. 

Yes, this book was good but not my favourite of Strout yet recomendation, of course.