THE CLIFFS

A novel about a woman, a house, and the history that haunts them.

Jane Flanagan, who lives in Awadapquit, Maine, with her alcoholic mother and chip-off-the-old-block sister, is in high school when she first sees the house, perched on a cliff overlooking the water. Deserted, rotting, and creepy, but boasting colorful turrets and an abiding sense of mystery, the abandoned Victorian home fascinates Jane. It becomes her refuge, where she can escape her life’s hassles and feel at peace. Eventually, Jane goes to college (Wesleyan) and gets a graduate degree in American history (Yale). She lands her “dream job” as an archivist at Harvard and her dream husband, a handsome, kind economics professor who runs marathons and bakes. Then, in one boozy blowout of a night not long after her mother’s death, Jane explodes her whole dreamy life. When she returns to Awadapquit to ready her mother’s cluttered home for sale and contend with her equally messy legacy, Jane connects with Genevieve Richards, a wealthy woman who’s bought the old house and, while renovating, heedlessly bulldozed its history. Has Genevieve stirred up the property’s ghosts? Hired by Genevieve to unearth the house’s secrets and its often painful past, Jane must contend with her own. Sullivan—whose bestsellers include, most recently, Friends and Strangers (2020)—writes with her usual compassion, insight, and sensitivity, creating multidimensional characters about whom, even as they make regrettable mistakes, the reader unwaveringly cares. She also tells a broader story of America’s complicated history, weaving in accounts of Indigenous and Shaker women, and poses powerful questions about how to right the wrongs of the past.

Sullivan artfully and astutely engages with difficult topics in this absorbing, affecting novel.