Echo House [Paperback]

Ward Just (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 1997

Here is Just's masterpiece - an epic chronicle of three generations of Washington power brokers and the womenfolk who loved them (except when they didn't). The Washington Post described this book as "a fascinating if ultimately painful fairy tale, complete with a family curse. The decline of the Behls represents the decline of Washington from the bright dawn of the American century into the gathering shadows of an alien new millennium."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As a foreign correspondent and writer for the Washington Post, Ward Just knows Washington. And what he knows he's put into his latest political novel, Echo House, the story of three generations of a powerful Washington family. The book's title refers to the Behl family mansion, a historic landmark that has belonged to the Behls since the Wilson administration. Constance Behl, matriarch of the family, buys the house when it seems her husband, Senator Adolph Behl, is a sure bet for the vice presidential slot on his party's ticket. The political jockeying that surrounds this nomination and Senator Behl's mortifying disappointment are dealt with in the first 20 pages, leaving the rest of the book to chronicle the fortunes of the senator's son, Axel, and grandson, Alec.

Axel grows up to be a wartime hero and, later, an eminent leader of the Democratic Party. He marries Sylvia, a poet, and has a son, Alec, who grows up to be a powerful beltway lawyer. Outside this family circle there is a host of minor characters--politicians and politician's wives, reporters, lawyers, generals and civil servants. But throughout Echo House the main character is politics itself, as men and women wheel and deal, coax and bribe and threaten their way into power. By the end, it is evident that individuals come and go, but the system is forever. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Just's 12th novel (following The Translator, LJ 7/91) spans almost a century of American politics as lived by three generations of the powerful Behl family. Soon after World War I, Senator Adolph Behl aspires to be vice president but suffers betrayal. His son, Axel, is almost killed in an OSS operation in World War II but battles for decades as a major covert player in the Cold War. Axel's son Alec experiences personal loss but becomes the ultimate Washington power broker. Just's elliptical narrative pattern skips decades of family and national history to focus intently on a few key scenes of confrontation or revelation. His witty, elegant style is at times flush with metaphors?pages three to six alone offer five sustained analogies for political combat. Nevertheless, in an age of rampant cynicism he captures both the nastiness and the nobility of political life and blends it all successfully with a dramatic family saga. Recommended for general collections.
-?Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (December 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395901383
• ISBN-13: 978-0395901380
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

WARD JUST is the author of fifteen previous novels, including the National Book Award finalist Echo House, A Dangerous Friend, winner of the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for fiction from the Society of American Historians, and An Unfinished Season, winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award and a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten stars, January 19, 2001

By 

D. C. Carrad "augustabookman" (Augusta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Echo House (Paperback)

This is one of the best American novels of the twentieth century. It is brilliant in concept and spans generations in a fascinating and compelling story. It helps to bring some political knowledge to this story -- if you don't know who Joe McCarthy, McGeorge Bundy, Adlai Stevenson, Dean Rusk and others are and were, you will miss some of the book's subtler themes and dimensions. A powerful and beautifully written story about the permanent overclass of Washington DC -- the men who run the country from behind the scenery and their conflicts with their women. This is an elegaic and sad book, and a subtle one -- not for Harold Robbins fans. Just's finest book and he is one of America's finest authors -- a great place to start to get to know his many fine novels.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars languid, melancholy, somewhat readable, November 24, 2004

By 

Michael Lewyn (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Echo House (Paperback)

I think most of the 3 and 4 star reviewers have it about right: this book is like a date with a nice but not-that-interesting person: inoffensive but not exactly leaving you hungry for more. Just is writing about Washington's lower upper class- Washington "fixers": people less well known that Presidents and Cabinet members, not as common as the Hill aides and ambitious young lawyers who cover Washington like locusts. Just makes these people seem as uninteresting as they are in reality, perhaps even more so.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Through a glass darkly., February 8, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Echo House (Hardcover)

Echo House has a style that is vaguely reminiscent of FitzGerald and also LeCarre. Just unfolds the story much as the characters operate, in the shadows, behind the scenes. We are denied details that would bring the narrative into focus and have to piece it together. The picture of how power operates in Washington is both fascinating and frightening. All in all, a very good read.