Centuries of Secrets

Title: The Cliffs 

Author: J. Courtney Sullivan 

 

A big best seller due to its selection as a Reese's Book Club pick, The Cliffs is blurbed by Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful, as "J.Courtney Sullivan's best book yet." This is what the publisher has to say about it:

 

"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."

 

Before We Begin

We started the meeting with some important housekeeping, which is The Matter of Blanche's Email. Please make sure to use her AOL address for all future communications as she has not been receiving most of what we've been sending. We, the Management, are not publishing said address here to avoid its being scooped up by robots or other nefarious actors and because you already have it.

 

Insights and Opinions

With Margy as our host and surrounded by her garden dahlias, we settled into a robust discussion despite missing so many of our group who were off doing other supposedly more important things.

 

+ Steve got us rolling with his first question: Is it possible to do too much research? What followed was an interesting back and forth surrounding the gruesome history of the indigenous tribes in Maine that appears around page 137 in the hard copy book. Some felt this section interrupted the flow of the story, Margy finding it "a bit preachy." Linda disagreed, finding it instructive and eye-opening. "For some of the dates mentioned, I remember reading in my high school history books the headline 'white man tames savage Indians.'" Steve, on the other hand, felt that this section is interesting and important in and of itself, but is a long back story that stops the reader. Because the book starts with a bang and moves along swiftly, he found this change of pace to be jarring.

+ Liz was struck by the richness of the book and the many topics and stories the author weaves together. "It feels like two books to me. One is the story of Jane and her life and what she's grappling with. The other is Genevieve and the ghost and the disturbed graveyard and the terrors and evils of the ancient history with the native population. A great editor might have said 'I think you have two books here.'" Blanche agreed that two books would have given the many threads in this novel more room to breathe. Steve pointed out that books like this that cover a span of time invite the reader to take the long view.

+ In searching for the central theme of the book, we doubled back to the book's inherent richness. Is this a book of place? Yes. Maine and its history are central characters. Is this a book of abode? Yes. A historic house is an obvious device used well in the story of Genevieve as well as the house's prior occupants. Is this a book about addiction and the generational wreckage it leaves behind? Yes. Jane's comparison of addiction while visiting a demented Betty is one example: "There were versions of death that existed inside of life, Jane thought. Her drunken blackouts, that time unaccounted for. The state Betty and the other patients here were in, almost the opposite of being ghosts -- a body with no awareness, no memory. The shadows of past lives all around in graveyards in old houses, in Jane's work as an archivist. In stories." In some measure, the author pulls together all of the strands of her story in this one passage.

+ Then, there was a brief uprising of chat about aging and how we're all falling apart, interrupted by Linda who got us back to the book.

 

+ Another beautiful element in the story is the portrayal of the lesbian relationship. Sullivan's telling is delicate, as it would have been at that time in history. It starts with just a kiss and moves forward with tender love that can't be acknowledged.

 

+ The long set piece about the kidnapped native close to the end of the book stopped us all. It's a compelling story and beautifully written. But its placement so close to the end of the work, when the reader wants to find out what will happen to our main character and to the other present-day themes, disrupts the flow and tosses the reader out of the flow. Maybe this is the theme in which Sullivan was most interested and felt should be given pride of place, but as readers, we felt that it was misplaced.

+ Our bottom line: Sullivan is a serious writer who engaged us all. There are many riches in this book, but we all wanted more of each "rich." Several of us plan to seek out Sullivan's other titles.

Our Next Read

For our October 21 meeting, we will read The Playground by Richard Powers. He's all over the place right now promoting the book, which was just published, so you should be able to find his interviews out there if you're of a mind. Linda will host.

This good-looking group.