Four separate points of view from four female narrators of an extended family across three generations as they descend on their holiday beach house in Maine. Thought-provoking and well written, it beautifully portrays how they all knew in their hearts of hearts there is no such thing as a perfect family. Each and every one puts on their own public face which now cracks under the weight of secrets. A great book.
The Kelleher clan's beachfront holiday house creaks under a weight of secrets. It's a place where cocktails follow morning mass, children eavesdrop, and ancient grudges fester. One summer, three generations of Kelleher women descend on the shore. Kathleen, finally sober, hoped never to set foot there again. Maggie, pregnant, has left her useless boyfriend. Ann-Marie, bound to the family by marriage, fantasizes about an extra-marital affair. In the middle of all this is matriarch Alice, who drinks to forget her failings as a parent and the events of a single night, decades before. These mothers and daughters are by turns fierce and loving, cruel and unforgiving, and through their shared history and private dreams, Maine lays bare the paradoxical nature of family and the love that we are bound to, no matter how savage the storm.
Courtney Sullivan is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, Commencement. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Elle, Glamour, Men's Vogue, and the New York Observer, among others. She is a contributor to the essay anthology The Secret Currency of Love and co-editor of Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
