Synopses & Reviews
In her best-selling debut,
Commencement, J. Courtney Sullivan explored the complicated and contradictory landscape of female friendship. Now, in her highly anticipated second novel, Sullivan takes us into even richer territory, introducing four unforgettable women who have nothing in common but the fact that, like it or not, they're family.
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials "A.H." At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface.
As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.
By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.
Review
"You don't want the novel to end in July. You want to stay with the Kellehers straight through to the end of August, until the sand cools, the sailboats disappear from their moorings, and every last secret has been pried up." Lily King, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"I have never stayed at this cottage in Maine, or any cottage in Maine, but no matter: I now feel I know what it's like being in a family that comes to the same place summer after summer, unpacking their familiar longings, slights, shorthand conversation, and ways of being together. J. Courtney Sullivan's Maine is evocative, funny, close-quartered, and highly appealing." Meg Wolitzer, author of The Uncoupling
Review
"An ideal summer read....Gives us...characters we can care about, despite their sometimes too-familiar flaws." USA Today
Review
"Attentive to class distinctions and hierarchies, as well as historic pressures and family dynamics, Sullivan presents women who may be stubborn and difficult, but she does so with such compassion and humor that we, too, end up rooting for them. Even if Maine weren't set on a beach, it would be a perfect beach book." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Sullivan's smarts shed light on topics all families deal with, but her tasteful approach on the tough ones (particularly modern-day religious issues) shine through. The cast of quirky characters will have you laughing out loud and aching for their regrets in the same chapter, pining for more pages when it comes to an end." MarieClaire.com
Review
"Maine's brisk storytelling, and the unfurling of its central mystery...sweep readers along with gratifying sink-into-your-deck-chair ease." Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Ms. Sullivan's follow-up to her best-selling novel, Commencement ...follows adult children who gather at their beach cottage in Maine to sip that familial cocktail of misery and love....Once the women are together, the fuse is lighted. Ms. Sullivan locks the doors and waits for the explosion." The New York Times
Review
"[Sullivan] validates the old adage that you can pick your friends, but you are stuck with your relatives. This is a powerful, evocative story, beautifully written to reveal raw human emotions....Fresh and lively....This is a well-crafted story about destructive family relationships and shameful behavior, loaded with tension, secrets, booze, marital conflict, stinging arguments, and some very funny scenes." The New Maine Times
Review
"Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan is a powerful novel about the ties that bind families tight, no matter how dysfunctional. Sullivan has created in the Kelleher women a cast of flawed but lovable characters so real, with their shared history of guilt and heartache and secret resentments, that I'm sure I'll be thinking about them for a long time to come." Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot
Review
"Everyone has dark secrets. It's why God invented confession and booze, two balms frequently employed in Sullivan's well-wrought sophomore effort. Alice Brennan is Irish American through and through, the daughter of a cop, a good Catholic girl so outwardly pure that she's a candidate for the papacy....As Sullivan's tale unfolds, there are plenty of reasons that Alice might wish to avoid taking too close a look at her life: There's tragedy and heartbreak around every corner, as there is in every life....Sullivan spins a leisurely yarn that looks into why people do the things they do — particularly when it comes to drinking and churchgoing — and why the best-laid plans are always the ones the devil monkeys with the most thoroughly. The story will be particularly meaningful to Catholic women, though there are no barriers to entry for those who are not of that faith. Mature, thoughtful, even meditative at times — but also quite entertaining." Kirkus
Review
"At the heart of this compelling novel of three generations of women emotionally stunted by fate and willful stubbornness is the family vacation property in Cape Neddick, ME, where the Kellehers have convened for six decades....In her second novel (after Commencement), Sullivan brilliantly lays out the case for the nearly futile task of these three generations of badly damaged Irish Catholic women seeking acceptance from one another." Library Journal
Review
"Sullivan creates deeply observed and believable [characters]....Moody matriarch Alice, her uninvolved hippie daughter Kathleen, brown-nosing daughter-in-law Mary Ann, and newly-single, thirtysomething granddaughter Maggie each has a simmering-below-the surface inner-monologue that lights a spark, and Sullivan makes sure we can only anticipate an explosion. Sullivan gracefully meets the challenge of crafting a cast clearly pulled from the same DNA soup, without a clunk or hitch in the machinery." Booklist
Synopsis
This breakout
New York Times bestseller from the celebrated author of
Commencement and
The Engagements, introduces four unforgettable women and the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of Kelleher women arrive at the family's beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.
Synopsis
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The celebrated author of Commencement and The Engagements introduces four unforgettable women and the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other. "Rich and exhilarating ... You don't want the novel to end."--The New York Times Book Review
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of Kelleher women arrive at the family's beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.
Synopsis
A
Time Book of the Year
A Washington Post Book World Notable Book
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of women arrive at the family's beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.
Synopsis
A Time Book of the Year A Washington Post Book World Notable Book
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of women arrive at the family's beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.
Synopsis
For generations, the natives of Harrisport have watched wealthy summer families descend on their Cape Cod town, inhabiting the massive cottages along the towns best stretches of beachfront. But when rich Southerner Tucker Moss breaks the heart of local girl Edie Wright in the summer of 1966, an enduring war starts between the two families that lasts for generations....
Edies youngest child, Lexi, should know better than to fall in love with a Moss, but at eighteen, she falls hard for Tuckers son, Hudsononly to find herself jilted when Hudson breaks off their engagement.
Eleven years later, Lexi returns home after two years away studying architectural photography, just in time for yet another summer on the Cape. When Hudsons younger brother, Cooper, arrives unexpectedly to sell the seaside estate after the death of his father and hires Lexi to photograph it, an unlikely attraction forms, and Lexi finds herself torn once again between passion and family loyalty.
Then renovations at the Moss guest house reveal a forty-six-year-old declaration of love carved into a piece of framingand a startling truth that will force two women and the men who love them to confront the treacherous waters of their pasts.
Synopsis
For generations, the natives of Harrisport have watched wealthy summer families descend on their Cape Cod town, inhabiting the massive cottages along the towns best stretches of beachfront. But when rich Southerner Tucker Moss breaks the heart of local girl Edie Wright in the summer of 1966, an enduring war starts between the two families that lasts for generations....
Edies youngest child, Lexi, should know better than to fall in love with a Moss, but at eighteen, she falls hard for Tuckers son, Hudsononly to find herself jilted when Hudson breaks off their engagement to marry the daughter of his father's business partner.
Thirteen years later, Lexi returns home after two years away studying architectural photography, just in time for yet another summer on the Cape. When Hudsons younger brother, Cooper, arrives unexpectedly to sell the seaside estate after the death of his father and hires Lexi to photograph it, an unlikely attraction forms, and Lexi finds herself torn once again between passion and family loyalty.
Then renovations at the Moss guest house reveal a forty-five-year-old declaration of love carved into a piece of framingand a startling truth that will force two women and the men who love them to confront the treacherous waters of their pasts.
Synopsis
For fans of Meg Wolitzer and Allegra Goodman, an intimate and provocative novel about three couples whose paths intersect in their New York City neighborhood, forcing them all to weigh the comfort of stability against the costs of change
Synopsis
A Real Simple Best Book of 2014“A glittering novel about fate, fantasy, and the anonymity of urban life.” — O, The Oprah Magazine “Mirvis's meticulously choreographed novel surprises and moves us.” — New York Times Book Review
“Graceful yet vigorous.” — New York Magazine
From the window of her Manhattan apartment, Nina spends her evenings watching the older couple across the street. She is drawn to their quiet contentment, so unlike her own lonely, chaotic world of child rearing. One night, through that same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. In the coming weeks, Nina encounters both the older couple and the young lovers on the streets of her neighborhood, and as anonymity gives way to different — and sometimes dangerous — forms of intimacy, Nina and her neighbors each begin to question their own paths.
With a “humane, intelligent perception of the emotional lives of her characters” (Wall Street Journal), Mirvis conjures a New York City teeming with buried treasures, casualties of a metropolis always in flux; not unlike its inhabitants, who must confront their own hidden desires and, eventually, weigh the comforts of stability against the urge for change.
Synopsis
“A glittering novel about fate, fantasy, and the anonymity of urban life.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “Read Visible City. Tova Mirvis’s graceful yet vigorous New York novel is about the half-inadvertent window-peeping that city life enables, and where it can lead.” —New York Magazine
After chaotic days of wrangling and soothing her young children, Nina spends her evenings spying on the quiet, contented older couple across the street. But one night, through her same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Who are these people, and what happened to her symbol of domestic happiness? Soon, Nina crosses paths with both couples on the streets of her Upper West Side neighborhood and, as anonymity gives way to different forms of intimacy, all begin to confront their own desires and disappointments. Shrewdly and artfully, Mirvis explores the boundaries between our own lives and the lives of others. From its lavish ghost subway stations to its hidden stained-glass windows, Visible City conjures a New York City teeming with buried treasures.
“An utterly perfect, deeply moving evocation of contemporary Manhattan [that] reminded me of Paula Fox and Laurie Colwin, and also those master chroniclers of the privileged classes, Wharton and Fitzgerald . . . Brilliant.” —Joanna Smith Rakoff, Salon.com
“Mirvis’s meticulously choreographed novel surprises and moves us.” —New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
From a best-selling writer, a story of unexpected friendship—three women thrown together in college who grow to adulthood united and divided by secrets, lies, and a single night that shaped all of them.
Synopsis
From a bestselling writer, a story of unexpected friendship—three women thrown together in college who grow to adulthood united and divided by secrets, lies, and a single night that shaped all of them When UC Santa Cruz roommates Anna and Kate find passed-out Georgiana Leoni on a lawn one night, they wheel her to their dorm in a shopping cart. Twenty years later, they gather around a campfire on the lawn of a New England mansion. What happens in between—the web of wild adventures, unspoken jealousies, and sudden tragedies that alter the course of their lives—is charted with sharp wit and aching sadness in this meticulously constructed novel.
Anna, the de facto leader, is fearless and restless—moving fast to stay one step ahead of her demons. Quirky, contemplative Kate is a natural sidekick but a terrible wingman (“If you go home with him, might I suggest breathing through your mouth”). And then there’s George: the most desired woman in any room, and the one most likely to leave with the worst man.
Shot through with the crackling dialogue, irresistible characters, and propulsive narrative drive that make Lutz’s books so beloved, How to Start a Fire pulls us deep into Anna, Kate, and George’s complicated bond and pays homage to the abiding, irrational love we share with the family we choose.
About the Author
TOVA MIRVIS is the author of The Outside World and The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers including The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and Poets and Writers, and her fiction has been broadcast on National Public Radio. She has been a Visiting Scholar at The Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fiction Fellowship. She lives in Newton, MA with her three children.
Reading Group Guide
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group's discussion of Maine, J. Courtney Sullivan’s engrossing and entertaining new novel. If you’re not a member of a book club, consider starting one up with your mother or your daughter—Maine is a perfect family read.
1. The epigraph pairs two quotes; the first is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem
Aurora Leigh: “Alas, a mother never is afraid, / Of speaking angrily to any child, / Since love, she knows, is justified of love.” The second is from a letter written by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter: “Just do everything we didn’t do and you will be perfectly safe.” Why did the author put these quotes together? Which characters do you think they refer to?
2. If you had to choose one word to describe the overriding theme of Maine, what would it be?
3. Which of the women in the novel would you say is a good mother, and why? Who resents motherhood the most?
4. Discuss how each of the four main characters—Alice, Kathleen, Maggie, and Ann Marie—approaches religion. Who seems to have the most comfortable relationship with God?
5. What was Alice’s motivation for changing her will? Why did she wait so long to tell her family?
6. Speaking of secrets, many of the characters in the novel keep substantial secrets for one reason or another. Whose is the most damaging?
7. What role does alcohol—and alcoholism—play in the novel? How do the characters use alcohol (or abstain from it)?
8. “Even after thirty-three years of marriage, Ann Marie sat at every family dinner and listened to them tell the same stories, over and over. She had never met a family so tied up in their own mythology.” [p. 185] What is the mythology of the Kelleher family? Who is helped the most by it? And harmed the most?
9. What does Ann Marie’s obsession with dollhouses tell us about her character?
10. After Daniel’s funeral, Alice says to Kathleen, “You killed him, and now you want me dead too, is that it?” [p. 249] Why does she lash out like this?
11. Why did Daniel’s death have such an impact on the family?
12. What did you think of the revelation about Mary’s death? Was Alice right to blame herself?
13. On page 397, Maggie says to Kathleen, “I actually want this baby. I don’t feel it’s a mistake the way you did with us.” Why does Maggie feel this way about her mother? Do you agree with her assessment?
14. And on page 408, Kathleen says to Alice, “News flash, Mom, you really weren’t that talented. None of us stopped you from becoming anything. That was a stupid childish dream like everyone else has.” How does this relate to Maggie’s earlier outburst? How does the notion of sacrifice play into each woman’s story about herself?
15. How did Ann Marie misread Steve so completely? And why does Kathleen’s witnessing the event change her attitude toward Ann Marie? Why do you think Kathleen reacted the way she did?
16. What kind of mother do you think Maggie will be? Who will she take after most: Alice, Kathleen, or Ann Marie?
17. Discuss the last lines of the book: “She prayed until she heard footsteps behind her, coming slowly down the aisle, a familiar voice softly calling out her name: ‘Alice? Alice. It’s time.’” Is this Father Donnelly, Daniel, or someone else?
18. Which of these women would you like to spend more time with? Are there any you’d never want to see again?