Landslide

Reviews

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

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 humour 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

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

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

This 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…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

A modern-day mother in Maine has to care for her teenage sons after her husband is hospitalized post-fishing accident. She wrestles with how to support her family in more ways than one in this gorgeous read. —Zibby Owens, Good Morning America

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. —New York Times Book Review

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

Through her disarmingly authentic portrait, Conley speaks volumes about changing ways of life. —Publisher’s Weekly

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 chronicle of an artist and mother contending with the hard truth that the foundations we build through love are in fact always shifting. Conley navigates this territory beautifully, in gorgeous prose that depicts equally well the cold mists of coastal Maine and the economic and social troubles that threaten the region. I fell in love with the characters in this story, and was inspired by the protagonist’s struggle to maintain her identity as an artist while building a family and remaining tied to the land of her birth. This is a story about what happens when a rupture forces an examination of the past, and how we find the way to move forward. It is suffused with danger and pain and love and hope, just like family. — Sarah Perry, author of After The Eclipse

Written with humor and grace, Conley crafts a narrative about the many cruelties a family can inflict upon their own while also conveying the delicate ache of a mother watching her children grow away from her. This poignant family portrait explores the daily chaos many parents can relate to, like financial struggles and the volatile nature of adolescents. —TinaMarie Craven, Hearst CT Media

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 World

This story is so full of life’s ups and downs that you won’t be able to stop thinking about the incidents that happen in your own life. The impact they have on yourself and others. Susan Conley deftly explores the traumas that are hidden in the family — from her sons trying to understand their father’s accident to dealing with the loss of a friend. Landslide is going to be on everyone’s must read list and will be perfect for a book club pick. —Kelly Barbara, Owner, Kelly’s Books

Landslide is Susan Conley at her finest. As a mom of soon-to-be teenagers and a wife entering her second decade of marriage, I was enraptured by every chapter of this novel. Everything from the spot-on dialogue to the feelings of fear, loneliness, frustration, jealously, joy and isolation made me feel not only not alone, but seen. —Emily Russo, Owner, Print: A Bookstore

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’s novel represents a kind of landslide—of setbacks and confrontations, uncertainty and disquiet. Conley deftly traces the mood swings as the family navigates reprimands, accusations, and Instagram. In the end Landslide is about family and community and how fragile each is . . . Self-reliance will only get you so far; eventually, you’ll need help. This book is about the cycle of innocence lost and found—and re-found. Kudos to Conley for bringing this painful and promising world to life. —The Working Waterfront

A main theme is how families use language, touch, glance and gesture—to see and know each other, to read each other and connect—or not. The novel reminds us that especially in times of trouble and change, it’s important to keep talking. Landslide looks perceptively as this landscape of love. What factors can a parent control and what factors does a parent have no control over? These high stakes are at the heart of the novel. The suspense is all too real. —Maine Women Magazine

Susan Conley’s latest book, Landslide, is a beautiful, spare novel about motherhood, adolescence, Maine, middle age, and marriage. It’s a novel about the struggles and challenges of living in our current world, but it is also filled with humor, light, and gorgeous descriptions of the sea. It’s a perfectly balanced novel, and because of this, it’s hard to put down. You might find yourself reading this compelling novel in one sitting! —Literary North

What a remarkable story! I was immediately drawn into this family’s story and loved the setting of a tiny Maine fishing village. I loved the conclusion of this book and the way the author reveals that everything is not always black and white. I felt Jill’s interactions with her sons were all incredibly realistic, as painful and funny as they are in real life. I couldn’t wait to see what they would do next! The title of the book is very fitting as it parallels the Stevie Nicks song, and what happens when your life comes crashing down around you.—The Book Bellas

I can already tell that Landslide will end up on my Best Books of 2021 list. Everything about her latest story resonated with me. Jill affectionately thought of her sons as the ‘wolves,’ a perfect metaphor for teenage boys. The constant worry, the guilt she felt, the sacrifices she made, the quandary that is all teenage sons . . . Conley got it ALL exactly right —Novel Visits