When the White House Was Ours

Loosely based on Porter Shreve's own childhood, When the White House Was Ours is the atmospheric and captivating story of a family's struggle to stay together against great odds.

It's 1976, and while the country prepares to celebrate the bicentennial, Daniel Truitt's family is falling apart. His father, Pete, has been fired from yet another teaching job, and his mother, Valerie, is one step away from leaving for good. But when Pete lucks into a crumbling mansion in the nation's capital, he makes a bold plan to start a school under his own roof where students and teachers will be equals.

Replete with the wry humor, human insight, and cultural resonance that characterizes Shreve's critically acclaimed fiction, When the White House Was Ours will be a joy to anyone whose family has lived through an idealistic time and ended up in an era of compromise.

Author: Porter Shreve
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 08/01/2008
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.60w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780618722105

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/14/2008 pg. 44
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2008 pg. 778
Booklist 08/01/2008 pg. 40
New York Times Book Review 11/02/2008 pg. 19

About the Author
Shreve, Porter: - PORTER SHREVE was born during the Lyndon Johnson administration, and grew up in Washington, D.C. In the 1970s his family started an alternative school called Our House Is a Very, Very, Very Fine House, and some of When the White House Was Ours is loosely based on that experience. Shreve's first novel, The Obituary Writer, was a New York Times Notable Book, and his second, Drives Like a Dream, was a Chicago Tribune Book of the Year.