THE DREDGE

Estranged neighbors dig up childhood trauma in a New England town.

“For such a small town, it feels like we’ve had more tragedy than most,” says Joan Gindewin, a lifelong resident of Macoun, Connecticut. Indeed, the families portrayed in Flaherty’s debut novel are defined by misfortunes large and small, sudden and slow burning. The Rowes, for example, are known for their erratic behavior, inherited from an alcoholic father with a temper “like a river coming down on you”; quiet and sympathetic Lily Rowe is the exception to the family’s cycle of violence. The Casey boys, Cale and Ambrose, are haunted by a series of family accidents and disappearances stretching back to an infamous nor’easter before they were born. The novel bounces between these characters’ 1990s childhoods and the 2020s. Still in Macoun, Lily is a recluse, devoted to her work as a property developer. Cale is in Hawaii, a hotshot real estate agent with intimacy issues; “I’m afraid you have secrets,” says a girlfriend before they break up. Meanwhile, Ambrose, who runs a construction company in Macoun, feels he’s “been forced, stuck, to stay behind and protect” a secret that his brother fled so far to escape. The three characters’ property-adjacent professions highlight questions around ownership and change, especially as they each become embroiled in the fate of the muddy pond abutting their childhood homes. With so much history buried in its murk, what claim do they have for preserving or disturbing it? Although the stakes are weighty, Flaherty’s unadorned writing holds the drama at a remove. Childhood events are told haltingly but given great psychological significance, while characters are mostly left sketched. Readers might agree with Joan: “First, you don’t know people…then you do, then you realize you don’t.”

A plot-forward depiction of family history—and how it can haunt for life.