First published in 1953, And Never Said a Word is one of Heinrich Böll's richest works, a novel that explores marriage with depth and compassion. Böll evokes an entire emotional world in the space of a day and a half as a husband and wife alternately relate a story of love and isolation, poverty and injustice. Weakness, as well as strength, provides the subtle emotional threads that form the bonds of their love; and they discover married life takes a far greater toll on those who love than on those whose hearts are empty.