Sarah Moriarty’s stunning debut is a portrait of the family scars and faults passed along the generations, brilliantly capturing life on the Maine coastline, where time seems to stand still even as the waters never stop moving.
On an island in Maine, four siblings arrive at their sprawling, old summer place for the Fourth of July. It’s the Willoughbys’ first summer without their parents, and their beloved house is falling apart. When a substantial offer is made on the estate, the two brothers and two sisters are forced to confront issues they had hoped to keep hidden.
An homage to the layers and limits of the family bond, North Haven explores the shifting allegiances between siblings as they contend with their inheritance, the truth of family lore, and even the veracity of their own memories. This lyrical and moving novel delves into the secret world that exists between parents, one their children don’t fully understand, much as they may think they do.
Not as good as I wanted it to be I wanted to enjoy this book, and the characters in it, even if they were all immature, but the writing just wasn’t that great. She said “soapstone sink” way too many times, too obviously trying to bang home a description that didn’t enhance the book at all. And for all the description I still couldn’t really understand the set up of the pier/float what was connected to what. Also, I felt some things just came out of nowhere, like Danny’s suicidal thoughts, that weren’t really built up at all…
North Haven… a haven for secrets I liked this book. I selected this book because I am an “adult orphan” with three siblings – and had to go through the process of deciding what to do with a house and 50+ years of memories and belongings in it (albeit not a house worth 3 mil). So I related to it in that way. It was a very heavy subject, with each sibling having their own “secrets” that eventually would come out. Not pretty, sometimes crude, painful, but sometimes funny and sad, too. The language and sex did…
Reads like a creative writing assignment This novel is chock full of beautiful language and imagery, but thereâs also so much angst and unhappiness that it feels forced. It feels as if a college student with decent writing skills was asked to encapsulate all the misery possible in a personâs life and shove it into one story.