Rebecca Kauffman: We have the same survivalist impulses that animals do
Photograph by Rachel Herr In Rebecca Kauffman’s character-driven novels, everyone has pre-existing conditions. Her protagonists suffer from afflictions both physical and emotional: Another Place You’ve Never Been (2016) chronicles the decades-long dissolution of two families, while in The Gunners (2018), a young man losing his eyesight reconvenes a group of former neighbors following a classmate’s suicide. Flashbacks emphasize children’s helplessness in the hands of shortsighted parents, and ubiquitous themes of abuse, addiction, and abandonment expose characters’ capacities to be both predator and prey. These are deeply wound narratives, which slowly uncover divisions between lifelong friends and close relations.
The quiet spectacles of Kauffman’s novels, which unfold in working-class, middle-American settings, are the instances of grace and dignity encased within harrowing circumstances. Even quick, painless death is, given the alternative, a mercy. In her devotion to the subtle rhythms of conversation, marriage, and maturity, Kauffman underscores the humanity of even the ugliest deeds.
The House on Fripp Island, her third novel in less than four years, is new territory for Kauffman, given its structure as a beach thriller. Yet for all its suspense, the book is driven by its attunement to class distinctions and companionship. Lisa and Poppy, friends since adolescence and each married with two children, plan a joint family vacation at a palatial house in coastal South Carolina. The two families tiptoe around gulfs in wealth and taste, attempting to better identify what they owe themselves and each other.
Despite their shared history, Lisa and Poppy occupy different worlds. Lisa’s husband Scott has found his professional calling in a lucrative, ethically questionable legal field. Feeling stifled in a household with two daughters,
