Echo House
As a foreign correspondent and writer for theWashington 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 throughoutEcho Housethe 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.