If you admit one truth, what else will you have to acknowledge?
Lindsay, a thirty-year-old California native never gave much thought to being adopted. When she unexpectedly inherits her birth mother Claire's farmhouse in Maine, she is plunged into a journey across the country and across the years into a lake of secrets that will ultimately reveal just how far everyone was willing to go to protect her. Told from both Lindsay’s and Claire’s points of view, The Sunken Town explores adoption, identity, the nature of family dynamics, mother-daughter relationships, the impact of family secrets, the weight of motherhood and the lasting consequences of the choices people make.
"Karen Nelson’s The Sunken Town is both a spell-binding thriller and a profound meditation on the role of nature and nurture in human destiny. Bravo!"—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath trilogy
"The characters in Karen Nelson’s compelling The Sunken Town are all keeping things under the surface, emotions, correspondences, affairs, pregnancies, adoptions, abuses—one character even faked her own death. Many years later, the spider web of unasked questions and lies by omission gets broken by the reading of a will, turning many lives upside down. You will care about the outcomes of these intimately and complexly drawn characters in this intricately plotted, page-turner of a debut." —Pam Houston, author of Without Exception: Reclaiming abortion, personhood, and freedom
"In the tradition of Tartt's The Secret History and Makkai's I Have Some Questions for You, Karen Nelson's The Sunken Town probes the life or death secrets of an elite east coast school and the trio of glamorous "Royals" who seem to rule it, until an orphaned exchange student, Claire, begins to unearth the rivalries and crimes rippling beneath the surface of their lives. Thirty years later, Lindsay, the daughter Claire went to extraordinary lengths to hide and protect, must reckon with the legacy of her mother's hidden past and its implications on her own life. Gripping, illuminating, and creepy in all the best ways, Nelson's mother/daughter narrators will hook you from page one." —Gina Frangello, author of Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason & A Life In Men
"A captivating literary page turner, The Sunken Town tells the story of a mother and a daughter, each determined to create her own life no matter the obstacles. In a beautifully crafted first novel, Karen Nelson pairs masterful storytelling with crisp prose to reveal hidden lives and layers of secrets. From a New England college campus to a red-doored California cottage, these women must make choices about who they are, what’s most important, and how far they will go to protect it." —Cynthia Newberry Martin, author of The Art of Her Life
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Karen Nelson is the author of The Sunken Town and the co-founder of the nonprofit Writing By Writers. During her long career in nonprofits she has protected open space, funded cancer research, trained people to complete endurance events, and helped writers bring their work into the world. When not organizing writing workshops, she can be found hiking with her dog, reading, traveling, experimenting in the kitchen, and hosting dinner parties. She writes for various publications and is at work on her next novel.