I have always wanted to travel to Maine and the other East Coast beaches/islands. I’m told they have a totally different feel from Florida and California. Thus, I was very intrigued to read Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. I was expecting a chick-lit beach read but was delighted to find that this book was an exceedingly well written family saga with exceptional character development. I LOVED it!
This is the story of three generations of Kelleher’s and their summers on the Maine coast. The male family members play a very small supporting role to the well defined females in the clan. Alice, the matriarch, seems elderly and set in her ways at the beginning of the book. As the book progresses with flashbacks to Alice’s early life, you begin to see that Alice is very much affected by long-term grief.
Maggie, one of Alice’s granddaughters, come to Maine alone that summer to figure things out. Kathleen, Maggie’s mom and resident family black sheep, shows up to support Maggie. The most interesting character to me is Ann Marie, Alice’s daughter-in-law. Ann Marie is fascinating as she is an excellent wife, mother, grandmother and daughter-in-law and seemingly has the perfect life. As we all know, life isn’t perfect and Ann Marie’s true self is revealed.
Sullivan’s writing is so descriptive-
“Her cottage in Maine was the only thing that set her apart from everyone else, the only unordinary thing about her.”
“You’ve got moxie, butterfly,” her grandfather used to tell her when she was a teenager. Yeah, well. In the end, moxie always seemed to come back and bite you in the ass.”
“Some women were created to make other women feel like shit about themselves.”
“Parenthood by its very nature was the only job she knew of in which being successful meant rendering yourself useless.”
“The problem was that you couldn’t divide a person up, pick and choose the parts you like and the parts you didn’t.”
NetGalley and Knopf provided a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
What are you reading and where are you going?
This book is definitely on my TBR – the reviews have been great! Your review makes me want the book even more!
This review makes me want to read the book. Thanks!
Haha, I love that you want to come visit my part of the country! I grew up in MA and now live in RI, and I have traveled up and down the Northern East coast. The beaches are extremely different from California and Florida; they tend to be rockier and colder! But, they are beautiful and peaceful in their own way. I hope you make it out here sometime!
I’ve always wanted to visit Maine since I fell in love with the painting “Breezing Up”! The book was very good. I recognized some people in my own life within the pages.