Dawnland is about love of all kinds—romantic, doomed, familial, fatalistic, erotic. It’s about wounded people teetering on cliffs both literal and metaphorical, and the healing power of nature.
Truth Comes at What Price?
As summer draws to a close, the idyllic shores of Cape Cod hold a stormy forecast. Two families, bound by years of tradition at their beloved beach house, are on the brink of shattering.
April and Oliver are in-laws with a tangled past. As the family vacation unfolds, their buried secret threatens to erupt like a rogue wave, exposing long-held resentments.
Fault lines appear between spouses, siblings, parents and children. Lochlann, April’s volatile teenager, becomes ground zero for an inevitable earthquake.
Will truth force deeper, more authentic relationships or destroy them irreparably?
In this wise and lyrical novel by the author of April & Oliver, old secrets, family ties, and the unforgiving ocean collide in a summer of reckoning.
Advance praise
Occasionally a book burns into your occipital lobe unable to leave you. How do you stop longing for something you can never have? Dawnland is a poignant reminder that the longings inside of us never go away. Tess Callahan killed me softly with this book. My heart is still in her hands…
Tess Callahan works magic in her novel DAWNLAND, writing with mesmerizing lyricism and wisdom about an extended family’s fraught week on Cape Cod. On the eve of their widowed father’s second marriage, two brothers as different as night and day gather with their wives and children for an annual vacation by the ocean that turns out to be anything but mundane. DAWNLAND is a deeply intelligent story about marriage, parenting, adolescence, and the challenge of reckoning with one’s choices. I loved it.
Tess Callahan writes with furious urgency about yearning and desire. As family secrets are gradually revealed, the reader begins to glimpse how we are all complicit in the dance. Emotionally powerful, Dawnland explores questions of betrayal, guilt and loss, and the high cost we must pay for genuine freedom. The ending will stay with you long after you turn the final page.
”A deftly crafted and simply riveting read from start to finish, and one that will be especially appreciated by readers with an interest in complex family relationships, “Dawnland” by Tess Callahan is a very special and recommended pick for community/library Contemporary General Fictions.”
About Tess
Tess Callahan is the author of the novels April & Oliver and Dawnland. Her essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Writer’s Digest, National Public Radio, Agni, Narrative Magazine, AWP Notebook, Newsday, The Common, the Best American Poetry blog, and elsewhere. Her TEDx talk on creativity is titled, “The Love Affair Between Creativity & Constraint.” Tess is graduate of Boston College and Bennington College Writing Seminars. A certified meditation teacher, she offers meditations on Heart Haven Meditations and Insight Timer. She hosts an interview series on Substack called Writers at the Well. and curates Muse-feed.com, a toolbox for aspiring writers. A dual citizen of the United States and Ireland, she lives in Cape Cod and Northern New Jersey with her family and number one life coach, her dog.
Oct 22, 2024 - Author Talk & Q&A
7pm Morris County Public Library, Whippany, NJ
NOV 16. 2024 - East End Books Author Event with Susan Bernhard
6pm East End Books, Boston
Sept 9, 2024 - Reading & Discussion
7pm Wellfleet Public Library, Wellfleet, MA
SEPT 5, 2024 READING & Q&A
6pm Boonton Coffee House, Boonton, NJ