My Goodreads and Amazon review of Last House: The Age of Oil by Jessica Shattuck (Rated 5) – Who Pays for Progress? Jessica Shattuck’s sweeping novel, Last House, begins and ends with Big Oil, a geopolitical force that simultaneously fuels the world economy and ignites a family saga. Its title is the literal name of the family dwelling built by a man named John Last, a place to escape “when the world ends,” and a metaphor for decay. The narrative begins when the allied victory in WWII spurred well-intentioned progress and ends with the relentless pursuit of energy that today threatens the environment. As the world is torn apart, so are the generations in the Taylor family: Nick, the father, a veteran who is an idealistic lawyer for an oil company; Bet, the mother, who abandoned dreams of a career for suburbia; daughter Katherine, a rebellious child of the 60s; and son Harry, a “nature boy” before the term existed. In the background lurks Carter Weston, the amoral yet entertaining character who’s a fixture in spy novels. In the events of this finely plotted book, the peacemakers become suspect, their conciliatory motives perverted into their exact opposites. Meanwhile the fomenters of discord become heroes, the standard bearers of government and business. And beneath the national and worldwide drama, one family struggles to understand the generational rift that leads to tragedy and tears them apart. As a writer of 20th century historical fiction (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Shattuck’s ability to interweave meticulous research with an absorbing story. At the panoramic level, Last House is an indictment of corporate hypocrisy and political manipulation. At a granular level, it is a heartbreaking tale of parental and filial loss. It would appear that no one wins until subsequent generations rebuild trust from the ground up. The other winners are the readers who will emerge wiser and deeply moved by this thoughtful and compassionate book.
How big oil threatens one small family
Why writers read: “A good book is an event in my life.” – Stendhal
