Q&A: Polly Dugan, Author of ‘The House of Cavanaugh’

We chat with author Polly Dugan about The House of Cavanaugh, which is a poignant and gripping exploration of love, betrayal, and the unexpected ways secrets can bind us—or break us apart. 

Hi, Polly! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Hello! I am a novelist and short story writer and have lived in Portland since 1994 when I was one of the managers hired to open the now defunct downtown Borders Books and Music on SW Third Avenue. Although I grew up on the East Coast, I call myself an ‘Oregon native by marriage’ since my husband is from Portland. I am a graduate of Dickinson College, and the Denver Publishing Institute, and an alum of the Tin House Summer Workshop, where I got my education as a writer. After college I moved to New York City where my first job as an adult was in publishing, as a publicist for Prentice Hall Press. Since living in Portland, I have also worked at Powell’s City of Books, the Oregon Humane Society and Guide Dogs for the Blind. I have been fortunate to pursue fulfilling careers that center around books and animals, two of the most important things in my life. Since 1991, I have owned a dog, and historically two. I currently share my home with two black Labradors and a brown tabby cat. I write literary/upmarket fiction which typically explores complicated family dynamics, marriage, friendship, death and grief, resilience, reckoning and connection. My husband and I have two sons, aged 22 and 20, and they are my favorite people.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

Some of my vaguest, earliest memories are of my mother reading picture books to me, and from a young age, books were my constant companions and rewards for good behavior, getting through dentist appointments and always part of my Christmas lists. If I could bottle and market a scent, it would be the smell of my childhood, hometown library. As a child I was never without a book, a wonderful habit that my mother instilled and modelled for me early on. She used to say, “When you have a book, you’re never alone.” It was not a hard sell—I was a shy kid, an introvert with an active inner life and books were the first thing I truly loved. I got my first diary when I was nine or ten, and when I look at that one now, and the subsequent multiple journals I kept, I think they’re the evidence of when I first started to find my voice as a writer, and certainly where I excavated my own observations and experiences of the human condition. One of my favorite memories growing up was spending our family’s two-week summer vacation at my grandparents’ house in Surf City on Long Beach Island. At the beginning of those trips, we would visit the local bookstore and I would load up on my beach reading for the stay. That was happiness.

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: While I can’t remember precisely, I’m sure it was a Nancy Drew mystery, very likely The Secret of the Old Clock.
• The one that made you want to become an author: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot.
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: I am honestly so mercurial that the book I can’t stop thinking about is usually the one I am currently reading. But my gold standard, always on my mind, take to a desert island book would have to be Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. But after I finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver a few years ago, I couldn’t stop thinking and talking about it for weeks.

Your latest novel, The House of Cavanaugh, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Saga, marriage, secrets, grief, friendship.

What can readers expect?

Fifty years after Joan Cavanaugh’s affair with Peter ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson in 1964 in New York City, and twenty-five years after her death, in 2014 a 23andMe kit reveals the shocking paternity of Joan’s middle daughter, Anne, and two friends in Portland discover they share a sister.

This is a family saga with compelling stakes and relatable characters who I hope readers will invest in and root for, hopefully from the earliest pages. It’s a layered novel, which explores more than one marriage, friendship, loss and grief and the inner lives of characters that are often very different from what they reveal to the world and even the people closest to them.  The central plot point of the book is a ‘DNA surprise.’

Where did the inspiration for The House of Cavanaugh come from?

In 2010, I wrote a short story, “Legacies,” which introduces Joan Cavanaugh, and is included in my first book, the linked story collection, So Much a Part of You. After they read it, several readers asked me if the main character in that story honored Joan’s dying wish, and when I thought about it—that the conclusion of that story leaves ‘the door ajar’ for what could come next—I realized there was a lot more to Joan’s story that I hadn’t even considered or begun to tell. This novel begins where “Legacies” ends.

Another factor was something I don’t think is uncommon for people to experience in even the healthiest, most committed relationships or marriages, and that is at some point to feel taken for granted by their partner or spouse, and to encounter unexpected admiration or attention from someone outside the relationship. I explored that dynamic in this novel and took it to an extreme with high stakes and reverberating consequences.

And having lost my mother in 2003, eight months after I became a mother, loss and grief are typically central themes in my writing that I continue to draw from, and that’s a very prominent theme in this novel.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

Any scenes or parts of the book that involves plumbing a character’s emotional depths are always my favorite portions to write. Off the top of my head in this novel: when Graham has suspicions about Joan that he desperately wants a benign reason for, going through great discomfort to attempt to identify one; the spark of Carolyn and Julia’s friendship beginning when Carolyn is her most vulnerable and most alone; when Hutch gets caught snooping in his daughter’s neighbor’s house and makes an unexpected, jarring discovery. To name a few, these were opportunities for me to get inside my characters’ skins and heads and put them through very human, universal experiences that I hope will resonate with readers.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

I absolutely did. I began this novel in 2014 after finishing my second book and first novel, and right away with this project I had challenges deciding which point of view to use, and which characters earned one, and determining how this buried secret comes to light if Joan takes it to her grave—that alone made me feel like I’d written myself into a corner, which admittedly I had.

Then in 2019 I read Dani Shapiro’s wonderful memoir, Inheritance, and realized that was the way to go for Joan’s secret coming to light: let the DNA science and technology be the bearer of this unexpected news.

I have a dear friend who has three children from two marriages, and while obviously she knows her kids’ respective paternities, I asked the three of them to do 23andMe tests so that I could accurately implement into the novel how the platform’s portal reports a half-sibling relationship. That helped me regain some of the momentum I needed to finish the book.

At two separate times while I was working on the book, I worked with an editor, someone I knew through Tin House, who did a manuscript evaluation and gave me feedback on where she thought the book needed work and what specific improvements I could make. That type of input is invaluable, particularly when a writer is feeling stuck in their process.

What’s next for you?

I’m in the very preliminary stages of working on a novel based loosely on the summer when four friends and I worked at the Jersey shore between our junior and senior years in college. Our plans for that summer and the way it turned out ended up being very different.

Lastly, what books have you enjoyed reading this year? Are there any you’re looking forward to picking up?

I’m looking forward to My Friends by Frederik Backman and I can’t wait to read Anna Quindlen’s new book, More Than Enough, coming out in February 2026, which like my novel, has a central DNA plot element. She is one of my literary influences and favorite writers. What I’ve loved in the past year: I just started Absolution by Alice McDermott and am enthralled. Before that I read God and Sex by Jon Raymond, which I couldn’t put down and finished in two days. It is exquisite. Earlier this year, Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld, Hello Goodbye by Emily Chenoweth were both amazing.

Will you be picking up The House of Cavanaugh? Tell us in the comments below!