The Cliffs

Jane’s closest friend since childhood is Allison. Jane has always been grateful for their friendship because “everyone at school had known one another since birth, it seemed, and everyone wanted to be Allison’s best friend” (9). Allison is steadfast and loving even as she worries about, and sometimes bears the brunt of, Jane’s struggle with alcohol. Allison shows her loyalty when she stages a one-woman intervention to try to get Jane into recovery but also shows that she isn’t a pushover when she doesn’t contact Jane until she apologizes for her reaction. This incident also shows the importance of Allison’s friendship to Jane because it’s a major contributor to Jane’s final commitment to recovery.

In Jane’s mind, Allison is her foil: She and her family represent everything Jane wishes she had. Jane especially envies Allison for her mother, Betty, who in many ways acted as a mother figure in Jane’s childhood, offering the stability and support that her own mother couldn’t. In addition, Allison represents a path not taken by Jane. She was born and raised in Awadapquit, married a man she’d known since kindergarten, and took over the family business, living a life that closely resembled her parents’ lives when she was young. Jane vacillates between admiring and envying Allison’s life but fails to see that what she perceives as a perfect life has its own problems and issues.

An outsider to Awadapquit, Genevieve is a typical wealthy vacationer from Boston. The first time Jane sees her, she describes her as a “woman, around their age, [who] wore a pink Lilly Pulitzer dress and white sandals. She had the toned arms and calves achieved only by yoga teachers and wealthy housewives” (98). Notably, Allison doesn’t like her: Her rude behavior toward Genevieve shocks Jane because Allison is characteristically kind to everyone.

As a privileged, entitled person, Genevieve often gets her way without noticing the cost to others. Allison recalls how her husband, after telling Genevieve that they didn’t have room service, ended up making her a sandwich. Entitlement backfires, however, when Genevieve digs up the family cemetery at her house without considering the repercussions or seemingly recognizing that she’s digging up human remains. When the community and her friends discover the truth, her ostracization is so complete that she and her husband can’t even sell the house. The situation benefits both the local community and Jane because after a year without an offer, Genevieve and her husband, Paul, sell the house at a reduced price for use as a museum; however, Genevieve apparently doesn’t change, requesting that her and her husband’s names appear on a plaque near the door.

Despite Genevieve’s behavior and generally unsympathetic character, other details help create a more rounded character. She’s a kind and thoughtful mother to Benjamin, and Jane notes her nonjudgmental nature. In addition, like many women featured in the book, Genevieve’s life is filled with thankless, invisible work, highlighting the theme of Women’s Purpose in the Family and Community. Jane reflects, “[S]he made the doctor’s appointments and gave Benjamin his nightly bath and remembered to send flowers on her mother-in-law’s birthday. Tasks no one took any notice of if you did them properly. Only if you didn’t” (40). Genevieve’s character shows how society undervalues all women, even those in positions of relative privilege and power.

A Shaker woman, Eliza moves into the Lake Grove house to help Hannah during her pregnancy. She was indentured to the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake when she was three and left the community when she turned 18. Eliza’s story offers interesting, firsthand information about the Shaker religion and culture: Through her perspective, the novel unpacks the history of the Shaker religion and its connection to Spiritualism. Eliza’s perspective on Portland after she left Sabbathday Lake highlights the contrast between the deep kindness and strict lifestyle of the Shakers and the abrasive, excessive urban life outside.

Additionally, Eliza’s perspective fills in the gaps in the early history of the house. Her point of view provides information about the house and its inhabitants that isn’t available elsewhere. Eliza’s history reveals an intimate, loving, and long-term relationship with Hannah in which they raised two children and managed their home. Even though she left the Shakers, Eliza retained her Shaker identity, as evident in Hannah’s calling her Sister Eliza. Eliza died of consumption (tuberculosis) at age 38 and was buried under a fieldstone bearing only her name in accordance with Shaker tradition.

The owner of the Lake Grove house before Genevieve, Marilyn is a painter and a mother, and these two roles create tension in her life as she struggles to balance them. Marilyn’s perspective offers more of the “invisible history” that Jane seeks in her career, further filling in the timeline of the house. Just as Hannah’s story focuses on Samuel, history tends to focus on Marilyn’s husband (Herbert), but within the confines of Lake Grove house, the focus is on Marilyn, her relationship with Daisy, and her connection to Jane’s grandmother Mary. On a practical level, Marilyn offers Jane artifacts (which she wouldn’t otherwise have access to) from Hannah and Eliza’s life, adding to the documented history of the house.

Marilyn’s perspective illustrates how Jane’s family history intertwines with the house through her connection to Mary Flanagan, providing dramatic irony. In addition, Marilyn’s perspective pushes back against Jane’s perception of her grandmother. While Jane idealizes her grandmother Mary, Marilyn’s point of view depicts humanizes her as a person who was grieving and flawed.

Jane’s older sister, Holly, is a single mother to her son, Jason, and is kind and generous: “Since Jason’s early teenage years, Holly had been that laid-back mom who took in all the misfits” (58). The novel illustrates Holly’s kindness and compassion when Jane finds out that Erika, Jason’s friend, is staying at Holly’s house because her parents kicked her out after learning that she’s gay. Holly is kinder than Jane gives her credit for and more understanding than Jane knows. She had a closer relationship with their mother, Shirley, and thus knows more about their mother’s childhood. For example, she knows that their mother kept their grandmother’s struggle with alcohol from Jane so that she would have someone to look up to, and she continued to do the same after Shirley died.

Like Jane, Holly has an alcohol use disorder, but Jane sees Holly as her complete opposite. To her, Holly is just like their mother, and Jane looks down on both. Holly took over Shirley’s resale business, although she shifted the business to “more high-end clothing and repurposed antiques” (110). She takes care of her child and others and runs a successful business. Holly’s character shows the limitations of Jane’s perspective: It’s clouded by memory and emotion to the point that she doesn’t see the women in her life for what they are, including her mother, her grandmother, and Holly.