All the Houses

September 1, 2015
A rich moment in political history is distilled through its long-term impact on a disjointed Washington family. It takes only a few sentences for the second novel from Olsson (Waterloo, 2005) to divulge its author's roots as a reporter. Despite her Hollywood screenwriting aspirations, Helen Atherton narrates with the granular detail and on-the-fly analysis of a journalist born and bred in D.C., as Olsson was. Helen's story is set partially against the backdrop of the Iran-Contra hearings, which ruined the career of her father, Tim, a midlevel player in the Reagan administration. When she moves home to help care for Tim after his heart attack almost 20 years later, Helen slips back into the familiar struggles of a black sheep and middle child. Olsson captures some sweet moments of reconnection as dad and daughter tiptoe around each other, but the more complicated and compelling relationship stews between Helen and her sister Courtney, a high school superstar who eclipsed her younger siblings until she fell off the rails senior year. Courtney's tale of woe crisscrosses with Tim's and several B plots centered on slimy guys (the Atherton women share a taste for them, if little else): most crucially the late Dick Mitchell, a friend and colleague of Tim's, who behaved worse but fared better in Iran-Contra; and his stepson, Rob Golden, a former drug dealer who seduces both Helen and Courtney with his good looks and indifference. "In my family we hardly ever recalled our past to each other," Helen notes. "We compartmentalized." Olsson does the opposite in this affecting but tangled book, which takes long enough to sort itself out that it may lose you in the process. Family politics as usual, if they're usually a mess.

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October 15, 2015

In November 2004, 34-year-old Helen Atherton, a struggling writer and political news junkie, returns to Washington, DC, from Pasadena to care for her divorced father, Tim, who is recovering from heart surgery. Eighteen years earlier, in 1986, he was under federal investigation for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair. Helen plunges into her father's history with plans to write his story, hoping to document how her young father was full of potential and good intentions when he landed his job at the National Security Council. Instead, she discovers the details of her family's unraveling. Helen's return home allows her to get reacquainted with her two sisters and their high school friends, who provide details that went unnoticed by Helen during the crisis. VERDICT In today's world of 15 minutes of fame, Olsson (Waterloo) illustrates how the public may forget history, but, nearly 20 years later, the fallout of a political disgrace continues to affect families. The strength of Olsson's novel is her subtle unveiling of a small circle of Washington fathers whose long hours working behind closed doors impact their wives, children, and themselves.--Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015
Helen feels inadequate as the least successful of her three sisters. While Maggie is a professor in New York, and Courtney directs a nonprofit in their hometown of Washington, D.C., Helen is still chasing her dream of becoming a screenwriter out in Los Angeles. She avoids visiting home as much as possible until her father has a heart attack, summoning her back into the war zone of familial relations. Once there, she is swamped with memories of childhood and the struggles her family endured when her father was investigated during the Iran-Contra affair. Helen experiences a renewed obsession in researching the 1980s scandal and her father's part in it, but as she digs, she finds that maybe the truth she's seeking is more about herself and her family than the political affair. Anyone with a sibling is likely to identify with this story of self-discovery and growth. Like Helen, though, the book seems to vacillate between goals. By dividing time between family matters and political machinations, neither subject receives the full attention it deserves.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)