Author of
Panic Grass Farm (Forthcoming)
The Miracle on Monhegan Island (Liveright, 2016)
Last Summer of the Camperdowns (Liveright, 2013)
Apologize, Apologize (Twelve, 2010)
Elizabeth Kelly is a Canadian journalist, magazine and newspaper editor, and feature writer with several Canadian National Magazine Awards and nominations to her credit. Her debut novel, Apologize, Apologize!, was first runner-up for the William Saroyan Award and was also shortlisted for the Premio Roma. The Last Summer of the Camperdowns was a finalist for the New England Society Book Award.
She lives in a village in Eastern Ontario with her husband in an old house where she cultivates an hysterical garden, her four children having fled the nest. Suprisingly, they were easily replaced by two Shih Tzu, two Pekingese and a Leonberger.
Elizabeth Kelly
Books by Elizabeth
Panic Grass Farm
The wise and witty love story of a rock star and his childhood sweetheart–and the aftermath of a kidnapping that goes awry.
The Miracle on Monhegan Island (Liveright, 2016)
An O, The Oprah Magazine Best Summer Read
A witty and big-hearted "tragicomic romp" (O, the Oprah Magazine) set on Maine's Monhegan Island.
When Spark—the rakish prodigal son—returns unannounced to the dilapidated family home, his arrival launches an unforgettable summer on Monhegan Island. During his absence, his gentle brother and shrewd, fork-tongued father, Pastor Ragnar, have been caring for Spark’s son, Hally. A temperamental adolescent emboldened by tales of his father’s mischief, Hally is careening through an identity crisis when he stuns his family by claiming to have had a spiritual vision. Though Spark is permanently dubious, Pastor Ragnar pounces on the chance to revitalize his flagging church. Hally is shoved into the spotlight and, in the frenzy that follows, this fragile family is pushed to the brink.
PRAISE
"Ned is an excellent guide to the Monahan world…Cleverly, Kelly uses the dog’s-eye view to give us access to places and conversations only Ned could witness. Man’s best friend turns out―no spoiler alert needed―to be a most reliable narrator."― Stephanie Clifford, New York Times Book Review
"Risk-taking fiction from Kelly (The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, 2013, etc.), this time featuring a canine narrator, an apparition, and a whole mess of trouble between fathers and sons. Whatever resemblance the wry musings of Ned may bear to the inner life of an actual Shih Tzu, he serves Kelly brilliantly as an outside observer suddenly thrown into the dysfunctional interactions of the Monahan family…Kelly allows her vulnerable, fallible characters to grope toward better understandings of themselves and each other, with Ned acting as their engaging and affectionate chronicler. More terrific work from a writer who gets better with each book."― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Who needs a bird’s eye view when you can see the world through a dog’s eyes instead? All the better if that world happens to be gorgeous coastal Maine, as seen by the opinionated family pup in Elizabeth Kelly’s exquisite and occasionally uproarious Miracle on Monhegan Island. If you think your family is dysfunctional, you’ll love the madcap Monahans. Their story is so memorable, touching and dog-eat-dog (sorry), it can only be told by a true insider."― Elisabeth Egan, author of A Window Opens
"Serious and thought-provoking, shot through with dark humor and dark observations on religion and faith. . . . The Miracle on Monhegan Island builds slowly from a story about a dysfunctional family to a novel about obsession, religious fervor and mental illness ― and the sometimes very fine line between them. Even with a canine storyteller, this is one of the meatier books of the summer."― Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Charming, witty, and well-paced novel…this novel is equally thrilling and therapeutic."― Booklist
"At once touching and humorous, Kelly’s story boasts a plethora of themes and an enticing plot, complete with suspenseful moments . . . While Kelly’s multidimensional characters and descriptions―even the olfactory ones―are evocative and engaging, the winning element of this story is Ned’s voice, which provides an entertaining perspective on a dog’s life."― Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review)
Last Summer of the Camperdowns (Liveright, 2013)
Cosmopolitan's one of “The 22 Best Books of the Year For Women, by Women"
Washington Post Notable Fiction of 2013
Set on Cape Cod during one tumultuous summer, The Last Summer of the Camperdowns introduces Riddle James Camperdown, the twelve-year-old daughter of the idealistic Camp and his manicured, razor-sharp wife, Greer. It’s 1972, and Riddle’s father is running for office from the family compound in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Between Camp’s desire to toughen her up and Greer’s demand for glamour, Riddle has her hands full juggling her eccentric parents. When she accidentally witnesses a crime close to home, her confusion and fear keep her silent. As the summer unfolds, the consequences of her silence multiply. Another mysterious and powerful family, the Devlins, slowly emerges as the keepers of astonishing secrets that could shatter the Camperdowns. As an old love triangle, bitter war wounds, and the struggle for status spiral out of control, Riddle can only watch, hoping for the courage to reveal the truth.
PRAISE
"Kelly’s novel is a coming-of-age meets a whodunit… A laugh-out-loud funny page turner."― Ayana Mathis, New York Times Book Review
"The plot unfolds like the Cape Cod season itself… beginning lazily, languidly, before heating up and morphing into a fast-paced thriller."― Abbe Wright, O Magazine
"A wonderful novel is like an orchid: smooth, creamy, full of unexpected crevasses. The more you look at it, the more surprising it is. The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, by Canadian writer Elizabeth Kelly, is like that, giving us characters you’ve never seen before, worlds we never knew, crimes we never thought of. Of course, some of us raise horses for the fun of it and run for Congress and may be bona fide movie stars, but not too many, and as purely escapist literature, The Last Summer works beautifully… Really terrific fiction."― Carolyn See, Washington Post
"Riveting… Riddle perfectly narrates the events of one crazy, harrowing summer against the tumultuous backdrop of the 1970s. Written with cutting wit and intensity; it doesn’t get any better than this."― Library Journal
"Kelly’s new novel is just as scathingly witty as her best-selling debut but better plotted and even more emotionally harrowing… Kelly skillfully builds almost unbearable tension, slipping in plenty of dark laughs en route to a wrenching climax that leaves in its wake some painfully unresolved questions―just like life. More fine work from a writer with a rare gift for blending wit and rue."― Kirkus Reviews
"There was no putting down this book. Elizabeth Kelly’s riveting The Last Summer of the Camperdowns left me breathless."
― Marcy Dermansky, author of Bad Marie
"The best-selling author of Apologize! Apologize! (2009) returns with another witty take on a dysfunctional family… Kelly is a very entertaining writer with a digressive style and a way with metaphor …readers will find much to like in this colorful story peopled with larger-than-life personalities."― Booklist
"Kelly’s raucous, deliciously creepy novel about the dysfunction of the über wealthy begins in 1972 as the hoity-toity Camperdown clan prepare for another summer of horseback riding, fox hunting, and hors d’oeuvres in their cushy Cape Cod enclave... Kelly (Apologize, Apologize!) builds suspense by withholding the perpetrator’s motivations and the characters’ knowledge of who did it until the end."― Publisher’s Weekly
"These vibrant personalities jump off the page individually, and the collective dynamic is as lifelike and scintillating as beautifully cast actors in an artfully directed play… the scenes and dialogue unravel organically, and razor-sharp witticisms tumble out effortlessly."― Redbook
"The Last Summer of the Camperdowns is one of the most delightful beach books evah! It is the literary equivalent of a dozen Wellfleet oysters―salty, sweet, sublime."― Elin Hilderbrand, author of Beautiful Day
"Twelve-year-old Riddle James Camperdown witnesses a crime that will change her life and lives of those around her. A story about the family ties, the quest for status, and the secrets that kill."― Good Housekeeping
"[Kelly] takes readers to the Cape of the early 1970s. The narrator, a 12-year-old Wellfleet girl with eccentric ‘Me Decade’ parents―her mother a retired movie star and her father a candidate for Congress―is plunged beneath the surface of the idyllic summer setting when she discovers dark family secrets and witnesses a sinister crime she won’t soon forget."― Boston Magazine
"Kelly has a deceptively low-paced writing style that nevertheless delivers a jolt at every turn. Pungent metaphors often collide and occasionally cancel each other out…. She keeps us on the edge without letting us fall into the gothic trap…. This atmospheric summer read will not disappoint readers looking for a great turn of phrase and a mesmerizing story."
― Barbara Clark, The Barnstable Patriot
Apologize, Apologize (Twelve, 2010)
The dazzling debut novel about the family that puts the personality in disorder.
Apologize, Apologize! takes us into the perversely charmed world of the Flanagans and their son, Collie (who has the questionable good fortune to be named after a breed of dog). Coming of age on Martha's Vineyard, he struggles to find his place within his wildly wealthy, hyper-articulate, resolutely crazy Irish-Catholic family: a philandering father, incorrigible brother, pigeon-racing uncle, radical activist mother, and domineering media mogul grandfather (accused of being a murderer by Collie's mother). It is a world where chaos is exhilaratingly constant, where money is of no object. And yet it is a world where the things Collie wants-understanding, stability, a sense of belonging-cannot be bought for any price. Through his travails, we realize what it really means to grow up and also to grow into one's family: finding to find ways to see them anew, to forgive them, and to be forgiven in turn.
In prose that is lively, humorous, and brilliant throughout, Elizabeth Kelly gives us the dysfunctional-family novel to end all dysfunctional-family novels, finding the comedy and pathos in her characters' struggles, and showing beautifully how a family's love can be as trying as it is true.
PRAISE
"An imaginative and energetic triumph. What you hear from the onset of Apologize, Apologize! is the delicious sound of a gifted novelist taking flight for the first time. Even sitting on a table with its covers closed, Elizabeth Kelly's novel seems to buck and heave with its deliriously talkative and unforgivingly articulate characters. (Think of Dostoevsky on laughing gas.)"―David Gilmour, author of The Film Club and A Fine Night to Go to China
"A warm and wonderful tale with smart, sassy, yet gentle sensitivity. Elizabeth Kelly writes with an original rhythmic style that ushers us in as we turn the first page of this magnificent story of family ties, devotion, understanding and acceptance. I loved this book!"―Daryl Roth
"This novel starts with an enjoyable Celtic kitchen brawl of one-line put-downs in the heart of a family, and then moves its gears, through malice and disaster, to a quiet tone in which the protagonist finally learns to live with himself. It's a tour de force of energy and spirit."―Peter Pouncey, author of Rules for Old Men Waiting
"In this unflinching and funny debut, Elizabeth Kelly deftly paints her tale in alternating shades of lush whimsy and hard-won ferocity. Apologize, Apologize! reads as if Padgett Powell's Edisto had a first cousin from New England who was wealthier, more eccentric, more gothic and more drunk."―Mark Winegardner, author of Crooked River Burning and The Godfather Returns
"Listen up, readers . . . Meet the Flanagans, a quasifunctional family that might give Jonathan Franzen pause . . . Kelly is a clever, witty wordsmith with a penchant for apt if over-the-top metaphors that are laugh-out-loud funny."―Booklist
"By the age of twenty, Collie Flanagan, the protagonist of Elizabeth Kelly's splendid first novel, Apologize, Apologize!, has been tested by fate to the limit. The startling and painful wit of Collie's voice makes Holden Caulfield sound like a kindergartner, and lays waste to the acres of banalities and clichés that usually accompany stories about redemption. Rich with moral nuance and narrative surprise, this is a book as delightful as it is moving -in short, a magnificent debut. Ms. Kelly is a big talent and the book is deeply humane and subtle as well as wildly funny ."―Elizabeth Frank, author of Cheat and Charmer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Louise Bogan: A Portrait