Landslide

Landslide
Susan Conley
Hardback
h210 x 143mm - 304pg
2 Feb 2021 US
9780525657132
Out Of Stock
Sorry not currently available to order
After a fishing accident leaves her husband hospitalized across the border in Canada, Jill is left to look after her teenage boys-"the wolves"-alone. Nothing comes easy in their remote corner of Maine- money is tight; her son Sam is getting into more trouble by the day; her eldest, Charlie, is preoccupied with a new girlfriend; and Jill begins to suspect her marriage isn' t as stable as she once believed. As one disaster gives way to the next, she begins to think that it' s not enough to be a caring wife and mother anymore-not enough to show up when needed, to nudge her boys in the right direction, to believe everything will be okay. But how to protect this life she loves, this household, this family? With remarkable poise and startling beauty, Landslide ushers us into a modern household where, for a family at odds, Instagram posts, sex-positivity talks, and old fishing tales mingle to become a kind of love language. It is a beautiful portrait of a family, as compelling as it is moving, and raises the question of how to remain devoted when the eye of the storm closes in.
One of the New York Post, Bustle, Biblio Lifestyle, and The Medium' s Most Anticipated Books of Winter 2021. Landslide by Susan Conley is a supple examination of the sweet, enduring electricity generated by the ever-present pairings of darkness and light, fear and security, love and loss. If it sounds like a novel for our current predicament, current opportunity, that' s because it is. Landslide is wise and vulnerable, while Conley' s sweet, dry humor allows us sips of hope for the wonderful characters herein. --Rick Bass, author of For a Little While "With spare yet evocative prose, Susan Conley beautifully renders here the tug and pull of what it means to be the only woman in a family of men, a woman who is trying to raise two boys on an island off the coast of Maine, while also tending to her injured fisherman husband, while also trying to be the film maker she has always hoped to be. Landslide is not only a wonderfully compelling portrait of a dying industry and the people who make their living from it, it is also a love letter to the enduring nature of family itself and the ties that bind us all. " --Andre Dubus III, author of Gone So Long "I loved Landslide. Susan Conley is such a spare, eloquent writer. Her characters are richly but economically drawn, in this case Jill' s two teenaged sons called ' the wolves, ' and at the heart of the story is a marriage that may or may not come apart. You are right there with them in a fishing village in Maine, feeling the wind, the sea, the danger, just as you feel Jill' s worries, frustrations, her longings, her love for her family. Smart, honest, and funny, this is a story you won' t forget. " --Judy Blume, author of In the Unlikely Event Susan Conley has knocked it out of the park with Landslide. It is a spectacular tale of hardship and healing told in Conley' s gorgeous, luminous prose. Funny, moving, and deeply insightful, the novel takes such a fresh look at marriage, motherhood, and the wondrous inner lives of teenagers. A truly beautiful and unforgettable love story of a family on the brink. --Lily King, author of Writers & Lovers"From its very first page, Landslide gives the complete and deeply satisfying pleasure of a great novel: a fully realized world peopled by characters you feel you know, or used to know, or wished you knew better. Complicated people trying to sort their way through complicated lives, and the complications are the stuff of ordinary human beings: a mother struggling to manage her teenage sons, her "wolves," a fishing village in Maine staring down its end, a man in a hospital room miles from his family, and the sharp knife of accident that cuts through our days. As always, Susan Conley' s work allows for the best sort of vanishing. And I went gladly. " --Sarah Blake, author of The Guest Book"Landslide is a powerful portrait of a woman trying to hold herself and her family together in a moment of crisis. With startling clarity, Susan Conley captures the heartache, elation, intensity, and joy of motherhood and charts the emotional life of teenaged boys. Effortlessly readable and engrossing. " --Christina Baker Kline, author of The Exiles and A Piece of the WorldThis psychologically probing novel, about a fisherman' s wife guiding her teenage sons through a family crisis, is a shockingly honest examination of both the destructive and healing properties of mother love. It kept me reading past bedtime. " --Monica Wood, author of One and a Million Boy Life in Susan Conley' s wondrous new novel Landslide is full of a nagging sense that the past was better than the future could ever be. But it' s full of sweetness, and hope, too. A funny, fond, and rueful take on what life on the Maine coast is like after the tourists leave, Landslide will stick with you, and leave you rooting for the flawed family at its heart, even when they sometimes find it hard to root for each other. An unforgettable book. " --Brock Clarke, author of Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe "Conley' s stunning new novel is about the global concerns that bind us all, while also being deeply, sustainably, intimately local. Conley knows about women among men--and women raising men--as thoroughly as she knows the peculiarities, struggles, and habits of coastal Maine. As emotionally meaningful an experience as I' ve had, as a reader, in just about forever. " --Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock: A Diary If D. H. Lawrence had written Sons and Lovers from the maternal perspective, and set his story on the modern coast of Maine, the result would very likely be this novel. Landslide is not only a vicious meditation on the bond between mothers and sons, but a quietly subversive reckoning with the Maine of our literary imagination. So many writers have turned to our coast as a source of innocent beauty; Conley instead reveals how these tidal zones can betray us, and curse us with all of the anger and resentment, sacrifice and pain that can only be redeemed by a searing commitment to love. This is a really powerful book. It cuts right to the bone. " --Jaed Coffin, author of Roughhouse Friday "A compelling portrait of family life, deferred dreams and middle age. --New York Post, Best new novels of winter 2021: 9 must-reads for fiction lovers"Landslide is a powerful portrayal of modern parenting, marriage and family unity that cleverly reveals just how difficult these things can be in this age of social media addiction, teen peer pressure and economic uncertainty . . . Conley' s writing is crisp and vivid, especially the dialogue between mother and sons, wife and husband. There is some humor, but it' s muted in favor of the real-life family drama she so convincingly exposes. " --The Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel"Conley is at her best when chronicling the very real forces Jill balances while walking a fine line between empathizing with and laying down boundaries for her children . . . A compelling portrait of a family trying to stay afloat and weather every storm life throws at them. " --Kirkus "Immersive . . . Conley is at her best capturing Maine' s coastal terrain as well as Jill' s emotional turmoil. Through her disarmingly authentic family portrait, Conley speaks volumes about changing ways of life. " --Publishers Weekly
SUSAN CONLEY grew up in Maine. She is the author of four previous books including Elsey Come Home. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Harvard Review, the New England Review, and Ploughshares. She has received multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, as well as from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Maine Arts Commission, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. She has won the Maine Literary Award and the Maine Award for Publishing Excellence. She is a founder of the Telling Room, a youth creative writing center in Portland, Maine, where she lives and teaches on the faculty of the Stonecoast Writing Program.
Status: No local or imported stock presently available
ISBN-13: 9780525657132
Published: 2 Feb 2021
Published In: United States
Imprint: Alfred A Knopf
Publisher: Alfred A Knopf
Format: Hardback
Height: 210mm
Width: 143mm
Pages: 304

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