Polly Dugan to Appear at Hoffman Center for the Arts in Manzanita, OR
Join us for a reading by Polly Dugan from her new novel, The House of Cavanaugh, hot off the presses, published by Sibylline Press, October 2025.
This book revisits a family who appears in five stories in Dugan’s linked collection, So Much a Part of You (Little, Brown, 2014).
Dugan will read from her new novel and also discuss the thoughtful process of continuing a storyline from a fictional short story to the development of realistic fiction in a longer format.
EVENT INFORMATION:
October 17th
7pm-8:30pm
Hoffman Center for the Arts
594 Laneda Ave
Manzanita, OR 97130
Books will be available to purchase at the event.
About The House of Cavanaugh:
A long-buried secret. A friendship on the brink. A family forever changed.
New York City, 1964. Joan Cavanaugh—a young wife and mother yearning for more—falls into a passionate affair with Peter “Hutch” Hutchinson. When the affair ends, she returns to her marriage, raising three daughters with her devoted husband, Graham. For nearly three decades, she keeps her secret locked away, taking the truth of her daughter Anne’s paternity to her grave when she succumbs to cancer in 1989.
Portland, 2014. Carolyn Cavanaugh and Julia Hutchinson are are next-door neighbors and the closest of friends. But when Carolyn’s father, Graham, visits for Thanksgiving, his path collides with Julia’s parents, Hutch and Alice. The revelation that unfolds following Graham’s trip upends both families, bringing a truth to light that will shake two families to their core.
As decades of deception unravel, bonds are tested, loyalties waver, and the meaning of family is redefined. The House of Cavanaugh is a poignant and gripping exploration of love, betrayal, and the unexpected ways secrets can bind us—or break us apart.
About Polly Dugan:
Polly Dugan is the author of the linked story collection, So Much a Part of You, and the novel, The Sweetheart Deal. Her short fiction has appeared in Narrative and Line Zero. She is a contributing author to Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book by Courtney Maum. She is a graduate of Dickinson College and the Denver Publishing Institute, a former employee of Powell’s Books and Guide Dogs for the Blind, a Tin House Summer Workshop alum and a former submissions reader for Tin House magazine. She lives in Portland and Manzanita, Oregon with her family.
