Jul 20

Jul 20 Olympus, Texas

Author: Stacey Swann
Publisher: Doubleday
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

A bighearted debut with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology.

The Briscoe family is once again the talk of their small town when March returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms. Her husband's own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? Within days of March's arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold them together might be exactly what drag them all down.

An expansive tour de force, Olympus, Texas cleverly weaves elements of classical mythology into a thoroughly modern family saga, rich in drama and psychological complexity. After all, at some point, don't we all wonder: What good is this destructive force we call love?

TL;DR Review

Olympus, Texas is a roller-coaster read full of heart — part contemporary literary fiction, part Greek mythology retelling. I enjoyed every second.

For you if: You’re looking for a light read that still feels literary.

Full Review

“She hadn't yet learned that since love was the creation of two people, and people were always defective in one way or another, then the love itself was necessarily flawed. She knew that now, definitively.”

I’m a sucker for a) Greek mythology retellings, and b) poetic prose. So when I heard about Olympus, Texas, which has both, I knew I had to read it. All the praise described it as a wildly entertaining family drama, and so I saved it for a trip to the beach. Dear reader, this is the perfect literary beach read. A beach read for people who don’t typically read “beach reads.”

The Briscoe family is the most infamous in Olympus, Texas — matriarch June (guarded, sort of bitter) and patriarch Peter (a massive man, and a philanderer); their children, March (who has anger issues), Hap (a mechanic), and Thea (an attorney); Hap’s wife Vera (beautiful but jaded); and Peter’s twins by a mistress, Artie (a hunting tour guide) and Arlo (a musician). Oh, and their uncle Hayden (runs the local morgue, lives across the river). Two inciting incidents: Hap and Vera are having trouble after Vera and March had an affair, and Arlo seethes with jealousy over Artie’s new boyfriend, who (he thinks) threatens their closeness. Ringing any bells?

You definitely don’t have to be familiar with Greek mythology to love this one, but if you are familiar, you’ll love it all the more. The connections are super obvious, but well done; I found them fun without being cheesy. The characters, much like the gods they’re based on, are compelling (and make terrible choices), but Swann has done a really great job of fleshing them out, making them modern and human, giving them real, deep problems to grapple with as they struggle with what it means to love others and be loved in return.

In short, I had a blast with this book. Give it a go!