The House of Cavanaugh - by Polly Dugan (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A long-buried secret. A friendship on the brink. A family forever changed.

New York City, 1964. Joan Cavanaugh-a young wife and mother yearning for more falls into a passionate affair with Peter "Hutch" Hutchinson. When the affair ends, she returns to her marriage, raising three daughters with her devoted husband, Graham. For nearly three decades, she keeps her secret locked away, taking the truth of her daughter Anne's paternity to her grave when she succumbs to cancer in 1989.

Portland, 2014. Carolyn Cavanaugh and Julia Hutchinson are next door neighbors and the closest of friends. But when Carolyn's father, Graham, visits for Thanksgiving, his path collides with Julia's parents, Hutch and Alice. The revelation that unfolds following Graham's trip upends both families, bringing a truth to light that will shake two families to their core.

As decades of deception unravel, bonds are tested, loyalties waver, and the meaning of family is forever redefined.

Review Quotes

"The House of Cavanaugh is a moving, elegantly told novel about life and death, about familial love and familial secrets, and about how the past persists in the present, no matter how much we'd like to think otherwise. Polly Dugan is a wise and sensitive writer, and with this beautiful novel she'll break your heart." -Edan Lepucki, NYT bestselling author of Time's Mouth and California

"The House of Cavanaugh is a brilliant, gripping novel built around the secrets we keep from the world, and the ones we keep from ourselves. Polly Dugan writes like a dream. Her sentences are piercing and true. This book takes clean aim at the messy truths of the human heart. I couldn't put it down." --Steve Almond, author of All the Secrets of the World and Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow

"Polly Dugan writes about the complexities of family and marriage, love and loss, with authenticity and deep compassion. This artfully layered novel succeeds at being both a compelling page-turner and a sensitive, nuanced portrait of real people living real lives. I devoured it with eagerness and admiration." --Elise Juska, author of Reunion

"A family confronts a long-buried secret in Dugan's novel. A well paced...generational drama that holds the reader's interest as the decades progress." --Kirkus Reviews

"I was caught up in this rich, engrossing family saga from the first page to the last, wondering how withheld secrets would transform these relatable characters' lives. The story unfolds naturally and is told with great empathy for all; no one is a villain, no one a true deceiver. The Cavanaughs are simply alive, and as flawed and immutably human as the rest of us." --Laura Sims, author of Looker and How Can I Help You

"The House of Cavanaugh is a knockout. One of the most emotionally astute books I've read in years. How many complex relationships can be explored in one short novel? I think Polly Dugan redefines the answer." --Susan Perabo, author of The Fall of Lisa Bellow

"What a thrill to read Polly Dugan's gorgeous new novel about a long-held secret that ruptures and binds two families over decades. There's so much to admire about The House of Cavanaugh: the depth and complexity of characterization, the fluid movement between perspectives and over time, the surprising revelations. In the end, what makes the book so moving to me is that despite the range of painful emotions it explores--grief, betrayal, resentment--what wins out above all else is love, which remains when everything else fades away." --Scott Nadelson, author of Trust Me

"I have been a fan of Polly Dugan's writing since I read So Much a Part of You--she is a master at peeling back the layers of complex interpersonal dynamics and cutting to the emotional core of the things we hide and hold onto. I was so happy to see a family from that collection come back to fill the pages of The House of Cavanaugh, so that I could take a deeper dive into the relationships that Polly untangles - years of secrets and the subsequent revelations - and again I am held in the raw honesty and sharp truth of a beautiful storyteller. This novel will live with me for a very long time." --Jodi Angel, author of Biggest Little Girl and You Only Get Letters from Jail

"The House of Cavanaugh is a beautifully wrought portrait of the ways hidden truths carve pathways through generations. Elegantly written and deeply moving, it considers the quiet devastations caused by secrets kept and the redemptive power of truths finally told. A poignant and fearless exploration of love, loss