THE HARBOR SPRINGS FESTIVAL OF THE BOOK PRESENTS
One Bay, One Book
2025 Details
The One Bay, One Book Community Reads program features one book for the community to read followed by an opportunity to come together to discuss the book with the author. Unlike other Festival events, the selected book is chosen from the Festival’s author alumni. Selection criteria includes relevance for the entire community regarding the book’s theme, and its timeliness or timelessness.
JOIN US FOR TWO EVENTS WITH JESSICA
Tickets are FREE but required for each event and are available by clicking here.
BOOK GROUP DISCUSSION
Thursday, May 1st, 7 p.m.
Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Governmental Center
7500 Odawa Circle, Harbor Springs
(Commons area)
Thank you to our Thursday evening host.
IN CONVERSATION WITH GUEST MODERATOR, KATE MCCUNE
Friday, May 2nd, 7 p.m.
Birchwood Farms Golf & Country Club
600 Birchwood Drive, Harbor Springs
Registration is required.
The book is available at Between the Covers in Harbor Springs or independent booksellers everywhere.
This community programming is provided free of charge.
The Festival has a limited number of copies available to community members while supplies last, according to need. Contact us here if you are interested in receiving one. Limit one per household. Books must be picked up at the Festival office in Harbor Springs.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Women in the Castle comes a sweeping story of a nation on the rise, and one family’s deeply complicated relationship to the resource that built their fortune and fueled their greatest tragedy, perfect for fans of The Dutch House and Great Circle.
It’s 1953, and for Nick Taylor, WWII veteran turned company lawyer, oil is the key to the future. He takes the train into the city for work and returns to the peaceful streets of the suburbs and to his wife, Bet, former codebreaker now housewife, and their two children, Katherine and Harry. Nick comes from humble origins but thanks to his work for American Oil, he can provide every comfort for his family, including Last House, a secluded country escape. Deep in the Vermont mountains, the Taylors are free from the stresses of modern life. Bet doesn’t have to worry about the Russian H-bombs that haunt her dreams, and the children roam free in the woods. Last House is a place that could survive the end of the world.
It’s 1968, and America is on the brink of change. Protestors fill the streets to challenge everything from the Vietnam War to racism in the wake of MLK’s shooting—to the country's reliance on Big Oil. As Katherine makes her first forays into adult life, she’s caught up in the current of the time and struggles to reconcile her ideals with the stable and privileged childhood her Greatest Generation parents worked so hard to provide. But when the Movement shifts in a more radical direction, each member of the Taylor family will be forced to reckon with the consequences of the choices they’ve made for the causes they believed in.
Spanning multiple generations and nearly eighty years, Last House tells the story of one American family during an age of grand ideals and even greater downfalls. Set against the backdrop of our nation’s history, this is an emotional tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance and what we owe each other—and captures to stunning effect the gravity of time, the double edge of progress, and the hubris of empire.
Jessica Shattuck
Jessica Shattuck is The New York Times Bestselling author of the novels Last House (William Morrow, May 2024), The Women in the Castle (William Morrow 2017), a New York Times Bestseller, #1 Indie Next Pick, and winner of The New England Book Award; Perfect Life (W.W.Norton 2009) and The Hazards of Good Breeding (W.W.Norton 2003) which was a New York Times Notable Book, a Boston Globe Editor’s Choice Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the 2003 PEN/Winship Award.
Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, Glamour, Open City, and The Tampa Review among other publications.
Her other writing has appeared in The New York Times, LitHub, Electric Literature, Wired, The Believer Magazine, and The Boston Globe.
She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three children.
Jessica attended the 2018 Festival with her book, The Women in the Castle. We are excited to welcome her back to Harbor Springs.
Kate McCune
FRIDAY EVENT GUEST MODERATOR
Kate McCune spent half her career as a bookseller and the other half at Harper Collins as a sales rep to independent bookstores. She retired in 2024 and lives in Ann Arbor, where she’s now enjoying life as a customer at Michigan’s many great independent bookstores.
Kate has been a moderator for the 2023 and 2024 Festivals and is a member of the Festival’s Author Committee.
What People Are Saying About Last House
“A richly detailed, slow-burning family saga distinguished by incisive psychological insight and masterful research… Shattuck is such a good writer, giving us swaths of cultural and historical background as gracefully and intelligently as she parses the emotional depths of her characters. Every note in the novel rings clear and true.”
“Riveting, powerful, and beautifully written, LAST HOUSE combines the epic scope of an intergenerational geopolitical saga with the suspense of a moving family drama. Jessica Shattuck’s sharp insights about the seductive delights and dangers of progress, idealism, and loyalty will stay with me for a long time.”
“Last House soars. The novel sweeps us through the 1960s to the near future, following the river of oil that influences American policy. But the novel’s beating heart is the particularities of the lives of two captivating women, one bound by social mores, the other trying to dismantle them. The sublime ending touched me to my core.”
“Ambitious in its historical sweep yet intimate in its portrayal of a family’s trials, Jessica Shattuck’s moving new novel brings to life the ‘50s and ‘60s in America in such a way that we feel powerfully their contemporary relevance. THE LAST HOUSE is utterly compelling.”
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