All the Houses by Karen Olsson

All the Houses Reviews

• 
  Ron Charles

  Watergate’s punk cousin, the Iran-contra scandal, lurks in the background throughout Karen Olsson’s new novel, “All the Houses.” It’s a contemplative story about a D.C. family that got snarled in that scandal years ago and is only now starting to talk about what happened. For readers anywhere, “All the Houses” offers a rich exploration of the stubborn strangeness of parents and siblings, but for Washingtonians, the book also provides the uncanny pleasure of seeing our town’s mores examined with precision and sensitivity.
  
  Although Olsson inserts a few fictionalized snippets from the congressional hearings that transfixed the nation during the summer of 1987, she never exploits the memorable theatrics. Readers are expected. . . .
  
  To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
  
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
• 
  Lorilin

  Helen isn't getting anywhere in L.A. She's trying to write screenplays, but her ideas aren't great (even in her own opinion), and no one is interested in her work. Her personal life isn't exactly flourishing either, and she's been spending a lot of nights alone, falling asleep to C-SPAN. So when her dad gets sick, she decides to move back home to DC to help him out as much as she can. Over the next few months, she spends time trying to connect with him while simultaneously attempting to process certain important events from her childhood and teenage years.
  
  This is definitely one of those books that you have to mentally prepare yourself to read. At 400+ pages, All the Houses is long, thoughtful, and melancholy. It isn't that the subject matter is depressing--tedious maybe, at points, but not especially sad--it's more the overall tone of the book. Helen, the main character, is lost and ambivalent. She's often sullen, unmotivated, and restrained (though not in a dishonest way). Much of her behavior has to do with how her parents raised her: ever so politely and with plenty of emotional distance. She's a well-meaning, but aloof, main character who is trying very hard to give us everything she's got...without understanding that it's impossible to communicate to others what is going on when you yourself are walking through a haze.
  
  But if you, the reader, can will yourself into a relaxed state and commit to taking a slow and searching journey with Helen through her past, you will be rewarded! There is a lot I actually love about this book: the unique Iran-Contra subject matter, the complicated relationships between Helen and her sisters, and Helen's muted but still caring relationship with her father. I also appreciated where Olsson chose to take the story. The ending was very satisfying and complete, in my opinion.
  
  More importantly, the writing in here is really wonderful. For example:
  
  "He was telling me this, at last, and as he did I felt something in myself unlock, because it seemed to me that once he told me enough of the story, I would be released, finally, from needing to know it."
  
  Or, "[There is a] difference between people as we come to know them and people as the subjects of the stories they tell about themselves, which are not about the lives we see them living but about their most cherished departures from regular life."
  
  All the Houses isn't a book that flies by, but it is definitely interesting, reflective, and layered. It was like a nice long chat with a good and thoughtful friend. Once I mentally settled in for the long haul, I really enjoyed it.
• 
  Katherine

  I obtained this book because it was "Briefly Noted" in the New Yorker, and I was intrigued by the idea of a literary novel set in DC. The protagonist of this book, Helen, is seven years older than I am, and while there are some differences between her upbringing and mine—her family lives in Washington proper, not the VA suburbs; her dad is a Republican and works in the White House; they're private school kids—there are still enough similarities to the world I knew growing up, where dads worked for the government or in the Pentagon, and the Beltway was both a metaphor and the physical outer ring of the known world, to keep me interested.
  
  I've read some of the other reviews on Goodreads, and I can understand the knocks one might have against this book. It is "quiet," it is slow, it resists the urge to transform its heroine's life with a career break or a promising love interest. It's essentially about the problems of growing up in a WASP family where no one says what they mean or how they feel, where no one says much of anything at all, and as a product of such a family, the main character herself can come off as a bit bottled-up, a bit detached. A cool, cerebral observer of herself. Finally, Helen's repeated, self-conscious assertions that no one cares anymore about the Iran-Contra affair (she is trying to write a book about her father's minor involvement in it during the '80s) defuse but don't quite alter the fact that perhaps no one really does care about it anymore.
  
  But you know what? I love cool, cerebral self-observers, and I don't mind quietness, and I really loved this book. I can't say how I would have responded if I hadn't grown up in the shadow of Washington myself. Part of what Karen Olsson does so well is to realistically evoke the looks and feels of things I haven't thought about for years, but do have points of reference for, and the way they hit, the way she gets them so right, is so immensely pleasurable. But she's also a really good observer of family, of social interaction.
  
  For example, here's a moment at a Christmas party that Helen attends with her sister and her father, a party her family has been going to for decades:
  
  "I saw a head, a younger one with stubbly sideburns and impish eyes, floating above the crowd, attached to a tall man (though not too tall, his head perhaps not actually so lofty as it seemed in that moment). Our eyes met; instantly I blushed; and into my own head came the thought that this might be a different sort of evening than the one I'd anticipated. My heart accelerated for maybe five beats until I saw next to him a pregnant and pretty companion. But of course. Courtney ran over and gave him a hug. It was apparently someone she knew."
  
  It's all here: Helen's tone, her restraint, the way Olsson keeps the book feeling achingly real at the expense of a more conventional kind of drama (the guy does not turn out to be unattached after all; Helen, who is 34, never does stop reaching for men who come up a little short). Helen spends the whole book sifting through her family's past, looking for the truth of what happened to her dad during the scandal, for the reasons why she and her alpha-type older sister can't quite get along; these are also, presumably, related to Helen's own malaise, the reasons why she hasn't made more of herself by her age. She succeeds, and she doesn't; she changes and doesn't; the story makes sense, as you skate along the outside of it, and then when you try to explain it to yourself it doesn't, quite. I don't fault anyone who wanted this book to add up to more, somehow, but I enjoyed it just the way it was, came away with a pleasant feeling (maybe Helen's very restraint is what did it) of wanting it to go on, wanting just a little bit more.
• 
  Laurel-Rain

  How does one come home again, after launching an adult life, albeit one that is somewhat floundering? Helen Atherton is trying to find out how to do just that, and how to reconnect with her father, Tim Atherton, whose connection to the Iran-Contra Affair of the 1980s lent a certain intrigue to his life back then.
  
  Her father’s heart condition gives Helen the perfect excuse to change course, and try to write something meaningful about her father’s life and his work.
  
  Helen is the middle sister, sandwiched between her “perfect” older sister Courtney and the younger, somewhat elusive sister Maggie. When Helen comes back to Washington, D.C., she sees that the ties between the siblings are unraveling. She doesn’t understand either of her sisters, and they don’t seem to understand her.
  
  All the Houses was somewhat disjointed, going back and forth between the past and the present, and in both cases, we see Helen floundering. Her recollections of parties her parents threw in her childhood seemed to be her way of trying to understand how her father had made the choices he did, and why he is so detached from life now. His former colleagues and friends seem to have slipped away, and he lashes out. Was everything in his career defined by the mistakes he made?
  
  I didn’t care that much about the characters, although my favorite parts were watching Helen in the present, trying to forge a new life. Her memories of the past seemed like selective memories, as she tried to find meaning and hope in the events that defined her father and his career. 3.5 stars.
  
• 
  Bonnie Brody

  All the Houses by Karen Olsson is about a daughter, Helen Atherton, and her father, a man whose career was once fairly high in the U.S. State Department. Both his career and marriage ended when investigations into the Iran Contra Affair derailed his life. Helen is the major character although her father and sisters play important roles. Helen comes home to Washington, D.C. shortly after her father’s heart attack. She has been living in Los Angeles trying without much success to make it as a writer. She sees the return to D.C. as a chance to resolve some issues surrounding the familial trauma subsequent to the investigation of her father. Helen is thinking about writing a novel about the situation. She is in need of personal direction, something to give meaning to her existence. The novel take place in the present, but the past is is what holds our attention.
  
  It helps if the reader is interested in the issues raised by the Iran-Contra affair, otherwise the novel is a well-written story about characters who are somewhat flawed. If Oliver North (or any of the other players who illegally sent arms to the anti-communist rebels in Central America during the Reagan Presidency) is not a name you remember or really care about then the historical matters central to the novel might bore you. The character studies are very good and the writing is clear and skillful. The characters all have lives that revolve around the political culture of Washington, D.C. or academia. They are white, educated and somewhat affluent. Their sufferings are those of that class, made interesting to the reader by the richness and skill of the writing and by the personal stories told in the context of the politics of the Reagan era.
  Comment
• 
  Melinda Elizabeth

  The opening chapter of ‘All the houses’ struck a chord with me. When Helen begins discussing a time when her father was working for the White House, and those men in black arrived a the house to dismantle his home office, it reminded me of one of my favourite books/songs – ‘A book of dreams’/Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’. If you’e ever seen the music video for Cloudbusting, this dismantling of a man’s life is seen on film.
  
  So of course with this in mind I hunkered down and thought that this was a novel I was going to get behind. I was expecting the investigation of a relationship between Helen and her father, and how that change in circumstance impacted their relationship, and also how the family either bound together in the aftermath, or spread their wings and went their different ways.
  
  However this is not the novel I got. It’s a fairly monotonous tone that Karen Olsson uses with Helen. Helen’s not really in the moment, she’s merely retelling. And retelling with a droll narration. It’s not particularly riveting.
  
  Helen’s father was mildly involved in the Iran-Contra affair. He was but a mere minion in the overall scheme of this, however to Helen, his role has taken on a disproportionate level of importance and when her father is unwell from heart surgery, she moves back to D.C to help, and to also finally get that tell-all book out there. She see’s the situation with her father as her ticket to the bestseller list.
  
  Unfortunately the Iran-Contra element of the book is so niche that unless you have a burning passion for US politics in the 80’s, you’re going to struggle with the lengthy passages dedicated to this particular scandal. Argo, this is not.
  
• 
  Laura Hogensen

  Doesn't hit its stride until about Galway through, but then it starts to gel. There are some great depictions of families here. The novel does suffer from the narrator (or really the author) telegraphing what she's doing (in case there is any doubt on the part of the reader one assumes). I wish there had been less of that and more of showing us through her narrator's actions and thoughts.
• 
  Cynthia A

  If you like politics this is the book for you. This book takes a little longer to read because of the many events around Helen's life.
  
  I won this book on Goodreads and am willing to read other books by this author.
• 
  Marlene Cullen

  All The Houses by Karen Olsson explores family relationships, Washington D.C., and the Iran-Contra Affair. Published in 2015, it’s especially timely in 2020, exploring the United States’ history with Iran.
  
  Olsson expertly nudges the blurred lines between a father’s loyalty to the government and the conflicts within his family. She “writes about how Washington turns people into unnatural versions of themselves, how outside forces can warp family relationships, and how the familial nostalgia that sets in during early adulthood can prove counterproductive to actually becoming an adult.”
  
  Easy to read, entertaining, and informative.
  
• 
  Karen

  I started out liking the writing style and expecting a quiet character study with maybe some twist where the past comes back to affect the present. In reality it felt like nothing happened, the main character was uninteresting, and I didn't see the point. I was initially interested in Helen's friendship with Nina, maybe because it was the only storyline where something was progressing, but in the end it went in an odd direction and I didn't know what I was supposed to get from it.
• 
  Barbara

  Smooth, observant and well written. I grew up in DC and this was very reminiscent of the DC I grew up in. Author Olsson created a nostalgic and introspective novel with a well developed plot. The protagonists are strong, they show character and are very realistic.
  She should write more books!
• 
  Jane Hammons

  Uneven but overall good.
• 
  Samantha Graff

  This novel was most compelling not in its dramatizing of the Iran-Contra affair but when it captured the relationships between the Atherton family.
• 
  Blaire

  So unbelievably slow...
• 
  Melissa Comeaux

  I could never really find a point to this book. It dragged on in most parts and I didn't really get interested until near the end. And then the ending was meh.
• 
  Maulid

  Tbh, I can't enjoying while I'm reading this book 🥲
• 
  Tadzio Koelb

  From my review for the New York Journal of Books:
  
  If Olsson hoped that folding a well-known political scandal into her plot would supply the heft missing from Helen’s story, the scheme backfired. Because the family drama is yoked to a national one, the general lack of narrative urgency is even more obvious, particularly in the failure to establish a meaningful connection between Tim’s Iran–Contra experience and America’s most recent invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, any book about politics, even peripherally, even if lighthearted, cannot help but become a political statement – in this case, an acquittal by lacuna of a government that broke the law.
  
  Passages from Helen’s abortive manuscript about her father’s role in Iran–Contra recount small slights, personal grousing, and media misrepresentation, but barely anything about the larger political forces at play. Given that All the Houses is set against an occupied Iraq (let alone current fears about the state of Iran’s armories), one might expect that the illegal sale to the Islamic Republic of surface-to-air missiles by US government officials would receive serious attention. Instead, the whole thing is treated as not much more than a prank gone wrong. There are scenes (witty and well-written) portraying Contra leaders as disarmingly phlegmatic, and a funny tangent about visiting a shady New Orleans warehouse that is a weak link in the supply-chain. Oliver North is admired for his energy and dedication, and if he is not exactly praised, neither is he condemned. The fact that people were being killed at either end of the transaction is never once addressed.
  
• 
  Patty

  All The Houses
  By
  Karen Olsen
  
  
  
  
  What it's all about...
  
  My thoughts about this book...at first...is that this is a book about fathers and daughters and their reasonably complicated relationships. Helen has come home to help her father but this leads her to try to uncover some problems that her father had when Helen and her sisters were still at home. Her dad was involved in the Iran-Contra Affair but Helen never knew much about it or the extent of his involvement...is she home to help? Is she home to reconnect with her family? Or is she home to give herself and her floundering life in LA...a rest...can she regroup?
  
  Why I wanted to read it...
  
  I thought that this would be an interesting look at familial relationships that needed tending. I also thought it would be interesting to find out about the sort of hush hush aspect of what Helen's father did years ago. I don't know why but I didn't really think that it would be a political book and while it wasn't...it was about what goes on when you live and work in Washington.
  
  What I learned from this book...
  
  This book was a long slow read. Helen was not fascinating...she sort of just moped along. Her relationship with her near "perfect" sister Courtney was frightful...did she love her, hate her or just want to be her? I think I needed more action and I needed a better connection with this book. It was just ok for me. Readers who love a sort of "Washington" book might enjoy this one...there were parts I loved and parts that made my eyes glaze...honestly.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Molly

  Sadly, this book will not count toward my goal of 52 books this year because I made it to page 200 (valiant effort!) but could not go any further. Here's the gist of the story: Old crotchety man in Washington, D.C. has surgery or some procedure and his goofus daughter returns from California to tend to him and decides to (maybe?) move back. She clearly never got the memo about adulting and it becomes evident why pretty early on in the book. She's been spoiled (still is) and coddled by daddy. Anyway, dad had some role in Iran Contra - a role I could not discern in 2oo pages of reading - and her brilliant idea is to write a book about it. Never mind dad doesn't want to talk about it AT ALL. But, she pursues and you just have this sinking feeling that it can only end in disaster. I will never know (and I can live with that) as the story just seemed to be on one of those gerbil wheels and going nowhere (bitch about family, wonder what she should do with her life, Iran Contra ---> repeat).
  The book toggles between the daughter recounting her life both back in CA and during her 'visit' to D.C. then to Iran Contra hearings. I guess I just don't know enough about Iran Contra to have made much sense of the hearings the author throws in there.
  At one point, I actually asked myself if the author had some ax to grind with Oliver North - seems to be the point of the majority of the book. Is he even still alive?
  Anywho - stay away from this one unless you have an ax to grind with Oliver North then you might enjoy it.
  
• 
  Cathy

  This book may have narrow appeal for readers focused as it is on the peculiarities of living and working in Washington, DC, but it has a broader message of evolving family dynamics and sibling relationships. Helen, a single women in her 30's returns to DC to care for her dad who has suffered a heart attack. Her father, now in his 70's, was a minor figure in the Iran contra scandal. As Helen grapples with her recollections of what happened, she describes how her family was affected with poignant flashbacks to being a teen in the 80s. This is a fictionalized account, but plenty of facts about the real events are included which I found fascinating given my nerdy-news interest in political happenings and international events. The book moves slowly at times, but that was okay. Helen is a witty, authentic narrator with a good story to tell.
• 
  Chet

  Oh boy, so conflicted about how to rate this book! I wish Goodreads had 1/2 Star options, and I'd give this a strong 4-1/2 Stars. I'm being more judicious about doling out 5 Star rankings, holding out for truly amazing, extraordinary books that I believe will become Classics.
  
  This is not a Classic, but a damn fine read! And I will seek out her earlier book and hope it is as interesting and well-told as this story of a fractured (fracturing?) family in Washington DC trying to escape the judgements and fallout of the Iran-Contra scandal. Olsson mixes together history and teen angst with early adult hindsight and delivers a solid gem of a book. I highly encourage anyone to read this fine book!
• 
  Dee

  If you have any interest in Washington workings you will enjoy this read. I found the sister relationships fascinating (perhaps because I have no sisters). I found the narrator's voice to be clear in its searching for the past and the future within the sibling relationships and the parent relationships. I found the book to move along swiftly and never felt a lag in the lives and/or the action. The narrator is dependable and likable. The lives that revolve around her are loaded with suspense, apathy, and often a latent compassion. Recommend the read. (Disclaimer: family member)
• 
  Elaiza Ayap

  I read articles online and watched videos on Youtube about the Iran-Contra scandal before reading this book but still I found it hard to relate to the political side of it. But that's somehow understandable because I am not from U.S.
  
  I did like how the costs of a political scandal are presented in view of a family. I was able to relate to some of the family issues/situations presented but it was not enough to hook me into the story. I felt like I was drowning within the pages while reading.
• 
  Sue❊

  Brand new book - was reviewed in my sunday newspaper.
  I enjoyed it. It's about a family with 3 daughters, the father had
  some involvement in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980's.
  It follows the middle daughter, she is now 30 ish not married,
  still finding the right job. the story goes back and forth from 1985 to 2005
  I found it interesting. I wouldn't say its a must read.