Landslide

October 15, 2020
A fisherman's accident in Canada threatens to sink the already tenuous lifelines his wife and teenage sons are holding onto in Maine. Between global warming and decreasing quotas, Kit Archer is well aware that he might see fishing disappear in his lifetime. Yet, given that the occupation is the only thing he has ever known, he chases catches off Georges Bank. Unfortunately, an accident leaves him hospitalized in Nova Scotia while his wife, Jill, is left to attend to their sons, Charlie and Sam. A documentary filmmaker, Jill has to navigate the minefields of parenting teens while keeping her worries about her husband at bay and trying to endure the encroaching winter on an island off Sewall, Maine. It is no coincidence that Jill refers to 16-year-old Sam and 17-year-old Charlie as wolves: Their inscrutable silences might well qualify them as a different species altogether. The teen years are difficult enough, but Sam is also plagued by survivor's guilt: Two years ago, he watched his best friend drown. 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. The rather pat ending does a disservice to the nuance with which the narrative portrays Jill's simmering resentment at her husband's apparent infidelity and her self-perception as an outsider. Jill might come from the same class as Kit, but she grew up in Harwich, a mill town: "It had more to do with fishing, which was its own status in Maine and wasn't about class but something bigger, tied to the past and the ocean and survival." A compelling portrait of a family trying to stay afloat and weather every storm life throws at them.

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November 9, 2020
In Conley’s immersive latest (after Elsey Comes Home), a self-aware mother whose fisherman husband is laid up in a Nova Scotia hospital struggles to keep it together while looking after her two teenage sons. The Archers were experiencing money problems even before an engine explosion on Kit’s boat left him with a broken leg and internal bleeding. Kit’s recuperation proceeds slowly, while Jill, a documentary filmmaker, feels increasingly unequal to the challenges of parenting their boys—or as she calls them, “the wolves”—in the family’s home on a small island in Maine. Jill’s anxiety grows when 17-year-old Charlie says he wants to move in with his girlfriend’s family and 16-year-old Sam posts photos of himself smoking pot on Instagram. Meanwhile, Jill suspects Kit of having an affair with a female shipmate. Charlie and Sam tell Jill to “chill,” but chilling proves impossible when Sam, who has been talking about running away, disappears after being suspended from school. Jill’s film in progress about Maine’s declining fishing industry adds to her doubts about the future. While the ending feels a bit too tidy, 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. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, the Gernert Company

December 1, 2020
As her marriage, her family, and the fishing industry in her Maine community teeter on the edge of collapse, Jill, a documentary filmmaker, confronts perilous emotional waters that lead her to examine the trajectory of her life. Her youngest son spirals out of control after a tragic loss. Her oldest is growing up and falling in love. Her husband, Kit, away fishing for three months, has been seriously injured in a boat explosion and is hospitalized hours away in Canada. Darkening the family's already grim financial future is the chance that he may never fish again. Then, on a visit to the hospital, Jill becomes convinced he is having an affair. Love has been her beacon, leading her to Kit, the precious island he brought her to live on, her boys, and her work. Has she made the right choices? In spare, incisive prose, Conley (Elsey Come Home, 2018) captures the beauty and might of nature, a mother's awesome drive to protect her children, and the fraught trial and error inherent in navigating the complexities of multigenerational family relationships.

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January 1, 2021

From the outside, Jill looks as if she has her life together, with two handsome high school sons, a sexy husband, and a decent career as a filmmaker documenting the decline of Maine's fishing industry. But like a duck, Jill's calm exterior belies her furious paddling under the surface. The novel, Conley's fifth (after Elsey Come Home), is a running interior monolog, told strictly from Jill's perspective. Life on the Maine coast is difficult, with its storms and rough seas. Her fisherman husband is in a hospital a day's drive away, seriously injured after an engine explosion at sea. Motherhood seems particularly thankless: Her sons are in that hostile teenager stage, and one of them faces a real crisis. Jill has no time to finish her documentary, money is tight, and when she visits her husband, she finds he has a new female friend. VERDICT An invigorating, informative read. Jill's strong voice throughout gives a sense of immediacy, and the prose is punchy, economical, and wry. We learn how fishing quotas impact her town's shaky economy and how gentrification is overtaking Maine's harbor towns, a context that elevates the story beyond mere domestic drama.--Reba Leiding, emerita, James Madison Univ. Lib, Harrisonburg, VA

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