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A review by danubooks
Last House by Jessica Shattuck
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Will they shape the world, or will the world shape them?
Nick and Bet Taylor meet in Washington DC during the WWII years, he a soldier soon to ship overseas and she a Vassar graduate working on a secret cryptography program. Bet has dreams of pursuing her PhD in literature after the war and leading a meaningful career, while Nick’s experiences will sharpen his desire to marry and create a stable basis for his life. Their upbringings were different: Nick’s father was a strict Mennonite whose family led a somber, no frills life, while Bet’s family of Irish immigrants had worked hard to better their lives and those of their children. Neither comes from the type of wealthy families in which their classmates and ultimately colleagues and neighbors were raised, and both feel not quite accepted within their milieu. Nick becomes a lawyer and goes to work for the American Oil Company, traveling to the Middle East to hammer out contracts and climbing the corporate ladder, while Bet finds herself a suburban housewife, raising their two children in the New England town of Mapleton. The oil industry provides the Taylors with a very comfortable life, and through it Nick meets the charismatic Carter Weston, who works with the CIA to further US interests in the Middle East. Carter recruits Nick to work alongside him even as he pursues his own work for American Oil to help tip the political structure in Iran towards a favorable partnership with the US, resulting in the reinstatement of the Shah and the dominance of the American Oil Company in that country. Through Nick’s friendship and work with Carter, the Taylors will buy a house and plot of land in a Vermont valley inherited by Carter and which Carter establishes as a retreat for a cluster of likeminded friends…an acceptance into the social sphere which had for so long eluded them. The Last House, as it is known, becomes the Taylor family retreat and their children, the fierce-minded Katherine and the gentle, nature-loving Harry spend summers there throughout their childhood. Katherine and Harry come of age during the turbulent late sixties, and each will come to look at the oil company that has been the source of their family’s income and success to be something insidious, part of an industry that is funding wars and ruining the environment. The family becomes increasingly strained, and ultimately a tragedy will forever alter their lives.
A saga that examines the ambitions of a generation who comes of age during WWII and the very different paths and morals that their children will pursue later on, bringing the two generations into conflict, Last House uses the oil industry as the prism through which this American family prospers and later splinters. Nick lives the American dream, working hard to rise above his modest beginnings to create a life for his family far more comfortable than what he experienced, and earnestly pursues a profession which he believes is bringing positive progress to a country struggling to shed its old ways. Bet loves her family but does not find an intellectual or creative outlet as an average suburban wife, and wonders about what her life would have been had she chosen to remain single and pursue her career instead of marrying Nick. Katherine judges her mother harshly for the choices she made, but as she eschews the life that her parents chose for her and instead becomes involved with political activism she too will make choices that will reverberate throughout her life, some she will deeply regret. Harry, the idealist and pacifist, will get pulled into Katherine’s circle, and that group in turn will intersect with Carter and his machinations. This is a story told through the eyes of many characters, well fleshed out and with their own dreams, agendas, and failings that combine to drive the sequence of events against a vividly painted background. Two turbulent periods in American history, where nothing can be seen as simply right or wrong, black or white…..professional life, personal life, and politics are hopelessly intertwined, and love and other passions are never quite enough to bring about a perfectly happy ending. Readers of Julia Glass, Claire Messud and J. Courtney Sullivan should find this novel greatly appealing, as should those who are intrigued by the actions of the US in Iran at the beginning of the Age of Oil or what life was like in the trenches of the protest movements in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I felt great empathy for each character, what they wanted to achieve and the struggles through which they lived. Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for allowing me access to this novel, with themes that resonate in struggles on college campuses and elsewhere in society today.
Nick and Bet Taylor meet in Washington DC during the WWII years, he a soldier soon to ship overseas and she a Vassar graduate working on a secret cryptography program. Bet has dreams of pursuing her PhD in literature after the war and leading a meaningful career, while Nick’s experiences will sharpen his desire to marry and create a stable basis for his life. Their upbringings were different: Nick’s father was a strict Mennonite whose family led a somber, no frills life, while Bet’s family of Irish immigrants had worked hard to better their lives and those of their children. Neither comes from the type of wealthy families in which their classmates and ultimately colleagues and neighbors were raised, and both feel not quite accepted within their milieu. Nick becomes a lawyer and goes to work for the American Oil Company, traveling to the Middle East to hammer out contracts and climbing the corporate ladder, while Bet finds herself a suburban housewife, raising their two children in the New England town of Mapleton. The oil industry provides the Taylors with a very comfortable life, and through it Nick meets the charismatic Carter Weston, who works with the CIA to further US interests in the Middle East. Carter recruits Nick to work alongside him even as he pursues his own work for American Oil to help tip the political structure in Iran towards a favorable partnership with the US, resulting in the reinstatement of the Shah and the dominance of the American Oil Company in that country. Through Nick’s friendship and work with Carter, the Taylors will buy a house and plot of land in a Vermont valley inherited by Carter and which Carter establishes as a retreat for a cluster of likeminded friends…an acceptance into the social sphere which had for so long eluded them. The Last House, as it is known, becomes the Taylor family retreat and their children, the fierce-minded Katherine and the gentle, nature-loving Harry spend summers there throughout their childhood. Katherine and Harry come of age during the turbulent late sixties, and each will come to look at the oil company that has been the source of their family’s income and success to be something insidious, part of an industry that is funding wars and ruining the environment. The family becomes increasingly strained, and ultimately a tragedy will forever alter their lives.
A saga that examines the ambitions of a generation who comes of age during WWII and the very different paths and morals that their children will pursue later on, bringing the two generations into conflict, Last House uses the oil industry as the prism through which this American family prospers and later splinters. Nick lives the American dream, working hard to rise above his modest beginnings to create a life for his family far more comfortable than what he experienced, and earnestly pursues a profession which he believes is bringing positive progress to a country struggling to shed its old ways. Bet loves her family but does not find an intellectual or creative outlet as an average suburban wife, and wonders about what her life would have been had she chosen to remain single and pursue her career instead of marrying Nick. Katherine judges her mother harshly for the choices she made, but as she eschews the life that her parents chose for her and instead becomes involved with political activism she too will make choices that will reverberate throughout her life, some she will deeply regret. Harry, the idealist and pacifist, will get pulled into Katherine’s circle, and that group in turn will intersect with Carter and his machinations. This is a story told through the eyes of many characters, well fleshed out and with their own dreams, agendas, and failings that combine to drive the sequence of events against a vividly painted background. Two turbulent periods in American history, where nothing can be seen as simply right or wrong, black or white…..professional life, personal life, and politics are hopelessly intertwined, and love and other passions are never quite enough to bring about a perfectly happy ending. Readers of Julia Glass, Claire Messud and J. Courtney Sullivan should find this novel greatly appealing, as should those who are intrigued by the actions of the US in Iran at the beginning of the Age of Oil or what life was like in the trenches of the protest movements in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I felt great empathy for each character, what they wanted to achieve and the struggles through which they lived. Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for allowing me access to this novel, with themes that resonate in struggles on college campuses and elsewhere in society today.