Last House

The bustling if scattered latest from Shattuck (The Women in the Castle) draws on the history of America’s interventions in Iran. WWII veteran Nick Taylor, now a lawyer for American Oil, is convinced that the U.S.’s support for the shah during the 1953 coup is the right course of action. His wife, Bet, never questions Nick’s forays to the Middle East, and the couple enjoys regular retreats at Last House, a cabin in rural Vermont offered to them by Nick’s shady colleague Carter Weston, who might be working for the CIA. Nick and Bet’s daughter, Katherine, finds work as a teacher after graduating from Bennington in 1967, but quits the following April after Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated and joins the staff of a radical leftist newspaper. Meanwhile, her dreamy and unfocused brother, Harry, never settles down. With the “people’s movement” heating up in early 1970s America, Katherine shuns her parents. So does the story, which is a shame, because Nick is Shattuck’s most nuanced character. Others are poked and prodded to fit into the climax, which involves Katherine’s boss plus Harry and a bomb. Fortunately, Shattuck exhibits a solid grasp on the period’s geopolitical intrigue. Despite a few sticking points along the way, readers will keep turning the pages to the end. (May)