After her father’s heart attack and subsequent surgery, Helen Atherton returns to her hometown of Washington, D.C., to help take care of him and, perhaps more honestly, herself. She’s been living in Los Angeles, trying to work in Hollywood, slowly spiraling into a depression fueled by hours spent watching C-SPAN-her obsession with politics a holdover from a childhood interrupted by her father’s involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
The rest of the world might have forgotten it, but the Atherton family never quite recovered. With sharp, witty, and suspenseful prose, All the Houses reveals their story, as Helen pieces together the political moves that pulled her family apart.
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All the Houses: A Novel
After her father’s heart attack and subsequent surgery, Helen Atherton returns to her hometown of Washington, D.C., to help take care of him and, perhaps more honestly, herself. She’s been living in Los Angeles, trying to work in Hollywood, slowly spiraling into a depression fueled by hours spent watching C-SPAN-her obsession with politics a holdover from a childhood interrupted by her father’s involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
The rest of the world might have forgotten it, but the Atherton family never quite recovered. With sharp, witty, and suspenseful prose, All the Houses reveals their story, as Helen pieces together the political moves that pulled her family apart.
After her father’s heart attack and subsequent surgery, Helen Atherton returns to her hometown of Washington, D.C., to help take care of him and, perhaps more honestly, herself. She’s been living in Los Angeles, trying to work in Hollywood, slowly spiraling into a depression fueled by hours spent watching C-SPAN-her obsession with politics a holdover from a childhood interrupted by her father’s involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
The rest of the world might have forgotten it, but the Atherton family never quite recovered. With sharp, witty, and suspenseful prose, All the Houses reveals their story, as Helen pieces together the political moves that pulled her family apart.
Karen Olsson is the author of the novel Waterloo. She has written about politics, science, and popular culture for magazines, including The New York Times Magazine and Texas Monthly, where she is a contributing editor. She is also a former editor of The Texas Observer. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., she now lives in Austin, Texas, with her family.