"The House on Q Street"

"The House on Q Street" (John Daniel, 2002), by Ann L. McLaughlin, is the story of the family of an American atomic physicist during World War II. As the father works on a secret wartime project (you can guess which one) with very mixed feelings and increased anxiety and guilt, the mother and two daughters feel increasingly deserted by him, and have to continue their own lives mostly without his presence. The main character, Joey, is ten years old at the beginning of the story, in 1942, and we watch her and her older sister Maddie grow up as they adapt to living in a new house in a new city (Washington, DC) and going to a new school, with secrets and changes all around them. Their mother suffers, and drinks too much for a while, but does better when she takes a job at a center for soldiers; Maddie is angry at her father and acts out a bit as a young adolescent; and Joey becomes attached to some of the military men and women who rent rooms in the family house, finds fulfillment as an actress in school plays, especially "Antigone," and tries to bring everyone together, make everyone happy, and fix what sometimes seems to be a broken family. The novel shows, in a way not often seen in American literature, how hard the war was even for those safely in the United States mainland. The main draw of this book, however, is the character of Joey, whom the author portrays with such authenticity, such understanding, that she jumps off the pages and has readers pulling for her and for her family to regain a normal life and to find happiness and fulfillment.