India, Oct. 16 -- the sense of something intensifying; unravelling.

We see it in what unfolds as we scroll on our lonely screens.

Elizabeth Strout, 70, weaves some of the chaos and division of our times into her new novel, via the character of Artie Dam, a teacher of history, in contemporary America.

The Things We Never Say is on the Booker Prize shortlist (the winner will be announced early next month). Strout has previously won the Pulitzer, for Olive Kitteridge (2009), a set of stories about a sharp-tongued woman in Maine.

A lot has changed since 2009 and her new protagonist, Dam, a 57-year-old living and teaching in a small Massachusetts town, is struggling. He is, by turns, suicidal and morose, though always generous and immeasur...