The Cliffs: Reese's Book Club: A novel
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers
“A stunning achievement, and J. Courtney Sullivan’s best book yet. Sullivan weaves a narrative that’s fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down.”
—Ann Napolitano, New York Times best-selling author of Hello Beautiful
On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.
Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.
Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.
“A stunning achievement, and J. Courtney Sullivan’s best book yet. Sullivan weaves a narrative that’s fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down.”
—Ann Napolitano, New York Times best-selling author of Hello Beautiful
On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.
Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.
Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.
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Community Reviews
Finished the book which was our book club pick and liked the ghost storyline during the October timeframe. I don't feel satisfied at the end of the book. Some of the content on native americans and colonial settling was boring or went on too long but haven't read much historical fictional on this era so I'm glad I got re exposure. Still not sure I know what happened.
Review of The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan
There is much to admire in The Cliffs, particularly its attention to a house and the land it occupies along the Maine coast. The sense of place is vivid and compelling. Jane is a strong, well-drawn character, and her struggle with alcoholism is handled with sensitivity and emotional depth.
However, the novel ultimately lost me with the inclusion of the story of Kanti waiting by the cliffs, a narrative presumably passed to François by his grandfather and presented as an Abenaki account of history. It is not, in fact, an Abenaki telling. Sullivan offers no indication that she consulted or spoke with Abenaki people, yet the story is positioned as an Indigenous perspective.
The later introduction of an Abenaki character at the end of Naomi further compounds this issue and feels presumptuous rather than respectful. Writing imagined Abenaki histories and inserting Abenaki characters without clear engagement, consultation, or acknowledgment crosses an important line. This kind of narrative appropriation functions as a continuation of colonization rather than a meaningful act of inclusion.
It took me awhile to get into this, and I thought it was about 100 pages longer than it needed to be. But the story was right up my alley, with historically-based fiction that teaches about people and times before us. All of the stories of the land, and the people who lived on ‘the cliffs’, were very interesting. Lingering ghosts, the work of mediums, grave-decimation, and the encroachment of the white man were quite unusual plot devices. One bone to pick. The whole storyline about the generational alcoholism winding through the main character’s family. I get it, but it was way too much.
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