The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

THE CLIFFS by J. Courtney Sullivan features an old, possibly haunted, house near Awadapquit, Maine. The other main character, a young woman called Jane, used the abandoned house as an isolated refuge when she was a lonely high schooler. She soon left town for college and ultimately found a “dream job” as an archivist specializing in women’s issues at a Cambridge Library. Over the years, she introduces her future husband to the house when they visit her mother and sister, who work together in the resale field and both of whom struggle with alcoholism. Then, at 38, Jane ends up back in Awadapquit, with both her marriage and career in jeopardy due to her own overindulgence with alcohol (“Sometimes the tragedies of a person's life didn't happen neatly, single file, one at a time, but all at once, so that it was impossible to know how you felt about any part of the whole.”). At that time, the new owner hires Jane to learn more about the house’s history and her capable research was my favorite part of the book. Sullivan expands upon Jane’s findings about the sea-faring captain who built the house; she devotes entire chapters to his wife and her maid, giving each a voice in describing their lives. Readers also meet the next owner, a talented artist who experienced a family tragedy. And there are even sections on the Indigenous people who named the area. Sullivan has included numerous threads – spiritualism and mediums (“…bodily death is not the end of consciousness. It is merely the passing of the soul into another plane.”); the Shaker religion; abuse and misuse of historical artifacts; women’s roles over time; alcoholism’s impact across generations; and modern-day entitlement. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times (“This skillful novel makes the case that knowing what came before offers us our best chance to truly understand our connections to one another, and what we owe to the land we inhabit.”) also reviewed THE CLIFFS which received a starred review from Kirkus and was the July 2024 Reese’s Book Club selection.