Landslide by Susan Conley

 

Landslide by Susan Conley is titled for the Stevie Nicks’ song that she penned about the changes and challenges of life, which certainly fits Jillian’s life at the opening to the book when the tune is playing on the radio in her car. Jillian’s son Sam, who was with his friend Liam when Liam fell to his death, deals with survival guilt. Jillian’s fisherman husband Kit has suffered serious injuries from an explosion on a boat and is in a hospital seven hours from their home in Maine. More complications will occur in the story as the Archers’ lives are headed for a landslide.

Life is challenging enough raising two teenage boys, and when Jillian is left to parent them alone while Kit is in the hospital far from home, things become a bit too much. Add to that the realization that Kit may have been having an affair prior to the explosion makes it almost unbearable for Jillian.

The pacing of the book keeps one reading, and the characters seem true to life.

Susan Conley has also written Elsey Come Home, Paris Was the Place, and The Foremost Good Fortune. She has also been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, The Huffington Post, Ploughshares, and The Harvard Review. She teaches at the University of Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Program.