“How does one live an honest life? This was not the first time he had wondered this, but it felt different today, he felt truly distant from it, and he truly wondered.”

Honesty—or The Value of the Unvarnished Truth—is one of the central preoccupations of this collection. Jack loves Olive for her refreshing bluntness, and questions his own honesty. As the book continues, both he and Olive struggle to be truthful with themselves about their pasts, their relationships, and how they are responsible. They grow as characters as they force themselves to face painful truths about themselves.

“And then Jack thought of the ants that were still going about trying to get their sand wherever they needed it to go. They seemed almost heartbreaking to him, in their tininess and their resilience.”

Earlier, Jack observed ants beneath his car, and returns to this image here. Although he is ostensibly talking about ants, it is easy to see this as a metaphor for the human condition. Like the ants, humans are absorbed in their tasks; they try to press forward despite inevitable and destructive disruptions. This image sets the book’s tone in the first story, and shows the reader a way in which to view the events and characters as they unfold.

“‘No reason to cry about it,’ Olive said. (Olive had cried like a newborn baby when she hung up the phone from Christopher after he told her.)”

Olive tells someone about her son’s baby, which died in the womb. The contrast of Olive’s hard exterior with deep inner emotion is characteristic. With this juxtaposition, Strout reveals that Olive’s brusqueness is an act designed to protect herself, both from others and from her own feelings.