First published 2024
Nick Taylor returns from World War II to a country entering the Age of Oil. As a company lawyer for American Oil in 1953, he rides the train to work each day and comes home to his wife Bet, a former codebreaker turned housewife, and their children Katherine and Harry. The oil business allows Nick to buy Last House, a remote Vermont retreat where the family escapes modern pressures. Bet stops worrying about Russian bombs, and the children explore the mountain woods freely. By 1968, America faces protests over Vietnam, civil rights, and Big Oil itself. Katherine enters adulthood caught between her ideals and the comfortable life her parents created through oil money. When the protest movement turns radical, each Taylor family member must face the results of their choices and beliefs. The story follows multiple generations across nearly eighty years, examining how one family navigates an era of grand dreams and spectacular failures.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-saga, generational-conflict
Setting: Vermont, America
Period: 1953, 1968
480 pages · Paperback · William Morrow Large Print