Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

Shortly after crawling up the beach at Saipan and surviving the Japanese gunfire, Nick Taylor realized he wanted to go home and marry the girl he left behind and build a family which would protect him from the future battles, or at least offer an oasis between battles. When he returns, he marries Elizabeth "Bet" O'Malley and they settle into life in postwar America. Nick, a lawyer before he was a soldier, works for a major oil company in Manhattan, while Bet tends to the family home as well as 5-year old Katherine and baby Harry in Mapleton, a suburb only a train ride away.

Nick travels a lot for the firm and when we first meet him in 1953, he has been away from home for a month, the longest absence yet. Bet meets him at the train station to find there is another man with him, Carter Weston, who will have a major part in all their lives. For Carter works for the CIA and he recruits Nick to help him in Iran, where American oil companies want the Shah to return to power. As the years pass and the children grow up, the Taylors become part of a group who buys the houses in a secluded town in upstate Vermont, dubbing themselves "the End of the World gang". The Taylor's house is Last House, named for the former owner, whose name was Last, but was also the last person to abandon the town.

In 1968, America is in turmoil, with protests against the Vietnam war, but also against almost everything. Big Pharma, Women's Rights, but especially Big Oil, which is seen to be oppressive and, after a spectacular oil spill in California, ruining the world. Katherine has graduated from college and finds herself at loose ends, in a job she doesn't particularly like, so soon falls in with a radical group which publishes a newspaper airing all the grievances from all over the world. Her younger brother Harry drops out of college and wants to fight in Vietnam, but fails the physical, so hangs around Kate and her friends instead. But Kate doesn't realize how much Harry is being radicalized. The climax of the story comes in 1971, while Nick and Bet are in Iran at the Shah's infamous party in the desert, and things at home take a disastrous turn.

Spanning approximately 80 years in the life of the Taylor family, this is a story of post-war America, how the Greatest Generation made a better world for their children, but their children's dreams of a better world are not their parents' dreams.

When you see a book listed as Historical fiction, one thinks WWll or even longer. What we often forget is that America has a rich history. A lot of conflict and resolutions have happened in the last one hundred years.
The family starts in the idyllic suburbs. They are new and shiny and there seems to be a surplus of everything. Country homes are the thing if you can afford them. A little does Nick know, the Last House will not only be the family's retreat but the only thing that holds the family together when the next generations find their footing in a world different than the ones those before had.
Though we follow the family for eighty some years and the novel barely makes it to this century, the division between generations is still the same today.

"Last House depicts a family drama unfolding over 80 years, but the storytelling seems to skim over many years, focusing only on select short periods. Consequently, the character development feels shallow, and the narrative lacks depth. Overall, it fell short of my expectations based on the description provided."

I was expecting more of a historical fiction novel than a family saga, which left me feeling a little disappointed - and wanting for more. I really enjoyed the multigenerational point of view from the book - and different perspectives husband vs wife (mom vs dad) - but also felt like this took away from the overall storyline. I think that there were too many emotions, opinions and experiences - although the book would not have been the same with fewer, i think each additional point of view, decade and experience took away from the others. I enjoyed the book, but never felt drawn to any character. If you are looking for a book that describes a family's experience from the post-war generation, through the boomers to present day, definitely pick this up!

Thank you netgalley for my advanced reader copy.

Writing: 5/5 Plot: 5/5 Characters: 5/5

This is a brilliant epic of a book. It spans a period of 90 years (~1950 to 2040) via the trajectories of a single family — each member ensconced in his or her own cultural context while engaging with the others who are firmly planted in their own contemporaneous but often dissonant contexts. The story begins with Nick and Bet Taylor — he a junior lawyer attached to an American oil team negotiating deals in the Middle East and she a WWII cryptographer who gave up her dreams of a PhD to become a wife and mother (as women did in the 50s). From this stability and cultural conformity came two children — Katherine and Harry — who grow up in a clash between the middle class values of their parents and the anger and rhetoric of the 60s, complete with Marxist hyperbole and anger-fueled violence in the name of peace and justice. Decades later, by the time the third generation comes of age, their social cohort is beset by the overwhelming angst from the imminent collapse of society from climate change, war, and shifting values.

What impresses me about this book is how well Shattuck captures the feelings of the time(s) from so many different perspectives. Anger, fear, bewilderment, passion. Sometimes it was hard to read because she captured it so well; other times it was chilling to read because the activism of the 60s (the good, the bad, and the ugly) is blatantly mirrored in what is happening today. She must have finished writing this book before the Israel / Hamas war began and yet she captured the mix of intentions, propaganda and stupidity of the current situation perfectly.

I loved that the multiple viewpoints were captured via highly reflective characters — their feelings of joy, frustration, rage, and angst appearing in response to a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. I love that they pondered, each in his or her own way, the responsibilities that are incurred simply by being alive. The pages are full of insight with regard to parenting, political attitudes, alliances, friendship, and familial support.

I was (pleasantly) surprised by the lack of cliche and manipulation in the narrative. If the author has a strong opinion on climate change, greed, politics, democracy, or activism, I couldn’t tell you what it was. She covered several competing thoughts on how a person chooses to live in the world as it is. One of my favorite parts (towards the end) was a 2-3 page summary of an optimistic and pessimistic view of the same world. Perfectly crystalized (IMHO) into personal attitudes and interpretations. This book could have been depressing but came off to me as more wistful — the wistfulness that always accompanies the passage of time, regardless of how sweet that passing is.

Some good quotes:

“That’s what civilization is,” Brent said. “Living with people outside your tribe. All those rules and norms and structures that allow you to coexist. Right? Without those, we’re just – cave dwellers, protecting our own turf. You escape civilization, you escape back into your tribe. “

“The Weather Underground had gone off the deep end. They had aligned themselves with history’s most violent killers, people who thought the righteousness of their cause gave them the right to make decisions about life and death: Hitler, Stalin, Charles Manson. In the name of justice, how could you choose that?”

“Still, Katherine‘s knee jerk cynicism, annoyed him. She had never even been to the Middle East. She knew nothing about Iran. She knew nothing about the oil industry or the complicated politics of resource distribution. She had never even taken an economics class. She did not grasp that she was on the top floor of a great complicated structure with her lofty ideals while he was in the basement, stoking the boiler, making sure she would not freeze to death. Her generation took so much for granted! All the peace and plenty they had grown up with wasn’t given — it was protected by a sheath of young men’s bones strewn across Europe and the Pacific“

“How will it work when everyone is exactly equal?” my mother wanted to know. “Is there enough, really, to go around?” I was appalled by this sentiment, so chauvinist, racist, survivalist. I railed at her about the capitalist racket, the smallness of her Depression-era mindset (“But I don’t have a mindset,” she protested. “I have questions”). She was a good sport about it, really, mild-mannered in the face of my patronizing. But she persisted: Wouldn’t there always be some way people sorted themselves? If it wasn’t race or gender or class, would it be intelligence? Physical strength? Blood type? Weren’t there always bound to be haves and have-nots on account of finite resources? The constraints of weather and geography, for instance? Who got the high ground with fertile soil versus who got the desert?”

“My father wanted calm and safety, not emotion. Everything in their life was set. That was her generation, I guess. Their households clean, tidy, and immobile, built to last. So, too, was their concept of the relationships of the people who populated it: mother, daughter, neighbor, housecleaner — these were static entities. I can see now that for my father, this was vital, the best protection he knew against all that was ugly, tangled, and difficult. My mother, though, longed for something different. She was forty-seven years old, and she’d been living the same life since she was twenty-three.”

“Conflict avoidance is a luxury of the bourgeoisie,” I said as if this were a well-known quote. Maybe it was. My head was awash in edict and directives and liberal platitudes.

“The idea disturbed him. They were raising a daughter who felt free to be unpleasant when she was unhappy? He would have been caned by his father if he’d ever been ‘unpleasant.’ ”

Last House reminds me of what happens with every generation – we question the actions of the previous generation, and that is a good thing.

In this book, Nick Taylor is a WWII veteran and a lawyer, whose company focuses primarily on the oil industry. He is married to Bet, who was a former codebreaker during the war but is now your typical housewife. They have two children, Katherine and Harry. As the story unfolds, Katherine seems to struggle with the comfortable world her parents created for her and her brother in the face of the Vietnam War, racism, conflicts about the U.S. reliance on foreign oil, etc. Katherine is more of the outspoken child. On the other hand, Harry quiet and reflective but seems to empathize with all the “wrongs” of the world.

I liked the story and found the characters interesting, but there was something missing. I felt like I was reading about individual characters, some were more developed than others and found the story to be disjointed. Towards the end of the story, there seemed to be more clarity and connection. Despite the challenges with the book, I still enjoyed it and appreciated the focus on generational differences, right and wrong and family.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

#LastHouse #JessicaShattuck

While many reviews of this finely crafted novel have focused on Nick Taylor's involvement in Iran as an oil company executive beginning in 1953, this isn't really about Iran at all- it's about a family during a tumultuous era and a tragedy. Bet and Nick are strivers and they marry when Nick returns from war, with Bet leaving behind her nascent career working on the Venona papers and her aspirations for a Phd in English lit. Their life changes when Nick's mysterious and well connected pal Carter invites them to buy an off the grid sort of home in Vermont. Their children Katherine and Harry flourish there unti they don't. The second part of the novel sees Katherine, newly graduated from college in the early 1970s, falling in with a group of radicals, a group Harry eventually adopts as well. This unfolds over the years, with historical events echoing into their lives. This is thought provoking (and sometimes Shattuck might try just a bit too hard to wrap everything in) about the period, about Big Oil, about protests, about the roles of women, and so on. It's also beautifully written and while you know something has happened, the actual event is not telegraphed. If I have a quibble, it's with the final chapters which feel more chaotic than the measured earlier parts. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Excellent read.

This book is definitely timely and hits differently than it would have had I read it even a couple of months ago. What I really enjoyed about this book is the portrayal of radicalization of youth. While their parents fought to create a life with fewer struggles for their children. The children in a way rebel against this lack of struggle but funneling their energy into a struggle they create for themselves…..activism, which can start out as earnest and well intended but result in extremism and short sightedness. I also like that the book ends with an element of hope and the message that only in working together can we solve the problems that we created together.

Set near the beginning of “The Age of Oil,” Last House follows the Taylor family. Nick served in the war and works for American Oil. Bet had a secret job decoding Russian intelligence that she gave up, along with dreams of a PhD, to be a suburban mom. Katherine is a boisterous, unhappy child. And Harry is a model son. As the family matures, each member diverges on their own path of survival. This novel teaches parts of history many do not know or have forgotten, and shows how people lived from many different perspectives.

The author paints a realistic picture of life in the USA from the 1950's to the 2000's. Quite a change here over that period of time. Having lived it myself, I could relate to the characters and understand the changes that occurred. Well done!

This is the first book I've read by Jessica Shatluck and this historical fiction book ranks high up on the list with Kristen Harmel, Kristin Hannah's books! Wow!!! She accurately captures the turmoil and lifestyles of the 1950s through the present and even ventures into 2026 as to what might be. Thanks for the advance copy!!

Last House by Jessica Shattuck is a gem! It is a remarkable, elegant and well-crafted story.
The strength of this book is in its storytelling, its rich characterizations and Shattuck's phenomenal writing!
If you love well-written historical fiction, family saga’s, love a fantastically crafted setting and characters, this is one book you’ll want to read! You’ll be swept away by the timelines and writing.
It was truly one remarkable story!

Thank You NetGalley and William Morrow for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

A beautifully written family saga set in a tumultuous era
Last House opens in 1953 as young WW II veteran and lawyer Nick Taylor visits Abbadan as part of the legal team from American Oil. On the plane a former classmate from Yale who is now a CIA agent recruits him to help in the “battle between Communism and democracy”. It would be easy to be misled by this prologue into expecting an action-packed story set mainly in the Middle East. The action and even violence that is certainly important to the book is pretty much all offstage, though. Instead, it is a beautifully written family saga that follows Nick and his wife Bet and their family through the years all the way to 2026.
This is the story of a family who all love each other but are torn by intergenerational conflicts revolving most prominently around Nick’s employment in the oil industry (They are NOT aware of the assistance he provided his former classmate.) given that his daughter Katherine is extremely active in antiwar activism to the extent that she even goes to work for a leftwing newspaper and his son becomes devoted to environmental causes. Other issues like racism also cause some strain in the family. Katherine falls in love with Brent, a Black man, but he is also a graduate of Columbia Law School and wins a Fulbright The characters are all well developed, and I understood and sympathized with each of them, even the ones I did not agree with. The title Last House literally derives from the Last family, who built the house originally back in the 1700s but no doubt also refers to the family’s feelings about the house as a sanctuary.
In some ways it is too good a book; I found it a tough read. I am the same age as Katherine, so her struggles as she was maturing and in her young adult years were all too familiar to me. She often comes across as obnoxious and holier-than-thou, a characteristic that was common in many of my more zealous activist friends. I recall antiwar demonstrations getting out of hand and personally sheltered friends from the city during the riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
This book will bring back memories for older readers and give younger readers a good glimpse at life in the 60s and 70s. It would make a wonderful selection for book club discussions, especially if the members varied in age. As I hear about a number of colleges canceling or scaling back their graduation ceremonies in 2024 because of student protests about the war in Gaza I have to wonder if it is also relevant to our current day.
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley and William Morrow.

I’m a fan of historical novels about the 20th century, and I was particularly piqued by the fact that this book had much to do with the oil industry because I have several friends and family members who have worked in that industry, from the 1940s to fairly recently. Also, I’m a baby boomer, and I remember very well what it was like having so many family members, including my father, who were WW2 veterans. Of course, I remember even better what it was like growing up in an era obsessed with the threat of Communism and nuclear war, then experiencing the tumult of the 1960s and 70s, as the Baby Boomers came of age and rebelled against, well, practically everything, as our parents thought.

Shattuck spends about the first 40% of the book on Nick Taylor and Bet O’Connor, who becomes his wife. Nick is the son of a strict midwestern pastor, and was bright enough to get a scholarship to Yale. When World War II comes, Nick serves in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Bet also has a keen mind and hopes to get a Ph.D. in literature, but the war interrupts her life too, as she is recruited to go to Washington DC and crack codes. The two meet in Washington, marry right after the war, and Nick goes to work as a lawyer and negotiator for a big oil company. All Bet’s dreams are subsumed into making a home for Nick and the two children they soon have, Katherine and Harry.

To Nick’s bewilderment, Katherine grows up to disdain her parents and becomes involved in the leftist movement. At about the 40% mark of the book, it becomes a story about what Nick, Bet, and Katherine are doing with each of their lives. Nick is very much involved in making deals with Iran, and is a close witness to the US government’s clandestine re-enthronement of the Shah. Bet has questions about his work and questions about what Katherine is doing, but women of her generation had little influence, no matter how bright they might be. And everyone worries a bit about Harry, a sweet soul who has difficulty finding himself.

It’s amazing how quickly the book goes by, considering how eventful it is. Shattuck’s writing is intimate, evocative, and insightful. There are some passages that stick with me, like one when Nick thinks about how his “self” slipped off like a cloak when he was in battle, and he became just a part of terrain, bodies, and sounds, in a struggle for survival. Another passage struck me when Bet and Katherine try to talk to each other about the fight for racial and sexual equality, but Katherine is still too young to have a real conversation with her mother. It is only years later that Katherine sees her mother as a real person and thinks about her ambitions and desires, thwarted by family commitments.

I won’t spoil the book by talking about what happens to the characters. I will just say that the story expands, and is about not just the Taylors, but all of us. This will make a great book club read.

Last House by Jessica Shattuck is a brilliant family saga about the Taylor family - Nick, Bet, and their two children, Katherine and Harry. The family members all grow and change immensely over the years, and the reader is there to witness all of it. The novel kicks off in the 1950s, right in the thick of the current events and happenings of that time period. The author does a phenomenal job of allowing the reader to experience the decades right alongside the Taylors. If you need an American history refresher, pick this book up! I can’t believe how much I learned about the oil industry. Ha! I feel like some readers will enjoy this one more than others, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “love it or hate it” type of book. I will admit that it took me a bit to get fully invested, but around the 25% mark, things really started to pick up. When the actual “Last House” was finally introduced in the story, I was completely hooked.

READ THIS IF YOU ENJOY:

- Family drama, dynamics, and dysfunction
- Multiple timelines and POVs
- Historical fiction
- Social and environmental issues
- Politically-charged storylines
- Stunning northeastern setting
- Themes of parenthood and marriage

The Taylor family is most definitely a memorable one. I just know that these characters will live rent free in my mind for years to come. My review would not be complete without mentioning the gorgeous cover. If I could draw a mental image of where I would like to retire with my husband, grow old, raise cats, drink wine, and read a lot of books at, it would definitely look similar to this. You all know that I’m a sucker for a nature scene on a cover!!!

Last House releases on May 14th! Super solid read!

A sweeping historical saga mapping the lives of one family in the decades following WWII, spanning multiple generations and nearly 80 years. It is beautifully written and throughout the story, Last House, is the constant in an otherwise changing world.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for this e-arc.*

Thank you William Morrow and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately this didn’t work for me and I DNFed it. I’m picky about my historical fictions but I love family dramas so I was hoping to love this. But something about the language didn’t click with me - I just didn’t love the voice telling this story. I might pick it back up someday but, for now, it’s a DNF.

Last House is a breath of fresh air within historical fiction. The post-WWII Cold War era is rarely covered in fiction. I grew up in this era, just a bit behind Kat from the book, and the atmosphere and details felt real and nuanced. They resonated with my memories of the protest era in the '60s and covered the transition to the increased violence as it occurred in the early 1970s. This novel is a "dysfunctional family" drama but in a good way. There are generational conflicts, but the family members never stop loving each other.

This novel is medium-paced and full of compelling, complicated, and interesting characters. Early foreshadowing of a dark event to come worked well to keep this reader engaged. Underlying the action in the book is the global quest by the USA to control Iranian oil—I went down the Google wormhole several times as I delved into topics brought up by the book. This is the best compliment I can give a book.

In short, if you enjoy historical fiction and are looking for underrepresented eras and themes, this book will appeal to you. If you are a Baby Boomer or Gen Ex, this book may also speak to you personally (maybe some to the Silent Generation).

Bookclubs will find many topics to discuss.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an electronic ARC in exchange for a review.

Thank you to William Morrow for an immersive, grab on and dive in, family drama. Shattuck has a talent for strong writing but also telling a story in a way that draws a reader into feelings and moods, to the subtle shifts in family and relationships, to dropping in phrases that make the reader feel like an intimately connected observer of the Taylor family. Last House is a great read for family saga fans, and especially for those who like to examine family relationship dynamics within the context of historical periods and generational shifts.

I am a huge fan of books that span decades, that follow families over time and over generations and I love that this book captured the movement from post WWII greatest generation lives, the pursuit of wealth but also comfort and providing for family and how those ideals became at odds with the very children raised by this generation, the movement into the civil rights and Vietnam War protests and then into present 2020s at the end... An examination of family, of place and time, of how relationships and shifting roles and identities change (and don't change). Shattuck has a talent for strong writing but also telling a story in a way that draws a reader into feelings and moods, to the subtle shifts in family and relationships, to dropping in phrases that make the reader feel like an intimately connected observer of the Taylor family.

Thank you for letting me read this book. I appreciated the fine writing and will recommend it to friends that I think will also value it. It gave an accurate picture of the changes in history and in families over that period of time. Unfortunately, I do not think most of my followers are in that category so I will not blog about it.