Swann possesses a distinctive voice ... Olympus is fictional but only in the sense that you can’t locate it on a map. Everyone who grew up in or currently lives in small-town Texas (small-town anywhere) will recognize it viscerally ... Tucked inside the action of each day, interspersed between numbered chapters of present action, are origin stories (a Greek chorus, if you will)—of rage and broken hearts and mistakes and youthful promises impossible to keep—offering explanations for the now-fraught relationships that lend much to the richness of these characters ... Swann is skillful at foreshadowing unseemly mysteries, laugh-out-loud dialogue, and extracting maximum texture from analogies without being wordy ... feels a bit old fashioned and traditional, but then our foundational myths would be. This debut novel is a great combination of rollicking entertainment and timeless philosophical questions—a big, messy family saga about home and love and how we mere mortals fail each but try, try again.
It may be difficult for these characters to realize their flaws and tangled desires, but it sure is pleasurable to read about them ... Although the book takes place over just six days, occasional interludes provide rich portraits of a character’s history ... Over all, the mythological lens feels inoffensive but unnecessary; most of the time it made me wonder why more characters weren’t aware of the allusions ... Swann’s novel is most successful at its violent, surprising turning point. I won’t dare to give it away. I read without breathing — OK, maybe I gasped — and I experienced the characters’ grief and regret as if they were my own. However, once the narrative moved past this climactic event, it too often relied on confessional or confrontational dialogue to do its dramatic work. The town of Olympus faded into the background, and the story felt a bit inert ... Not that this kept me from turning its pages and finding pleasure in its revelations ... I could have stayed in this particular somewhere for a long while.
The Briscoe family traffics in loud, often incredible gestures; the reader senses that Swann is having great fun with some of the scenes, even when they are heartbreaking for the characters ... Swann never loses control of the myriad connections and betrayals among the Briscoes and their neighbors. The direct, confrontational nature of nearly all the dialogue is surprising ... Swann's interest in the process of forgiveness drives much of the story ... Shifting among the perspectives of many 'Olympians,' Swann writes an action-filled, devastating tale of homecoming.
Each character in the expansive clan has his or her own secrets, extramarital pursuits and jealous rages, making it hard to keep everything straight without a set of cue cards ... No one here is innocent, likable or without secrets worth savoring, making Swann’s book all the more enticing ... As the novel races from one indiscretion to another at lightning speed, fans of mythology will enjoy spotting the tragic parallels between Swann’s characters and the Greek and Roman gods ... Swann’s prose is deeply descriptive and her characters heartfelt, but it all boils down to whether anyone in this family can get past their selfish feelings, unrestrained passions and bottled-up anger long enough to forgive each other.
Swann, a native Texan, cleverly reimagines the gods as down-home personality types ... Even if you don’t make every connection, Swann makes it clear that Greek myths offer a unique way to disrupt the conventional family saga ... When it comes to family-fiction tropes, Swann has found a way to be persistently, often admirably irreverent ... But rebooting myths as realistic novels is tricky, because human nature often gets skewed in the retelling. Successful such novels bridge chaos-sowing gods and resolution-seeking mortals...By emphasizing godly fury, Olympus at times lapses into melodrama, its characters delivering officious pronouncements...They speak often about what each other deserves, but because it’s hard to root for any one character, it’s easy to conclude they simply deserve each other ... thrives in its more intimate moments than in its sweeping, occasionally incredible plot.
Far from feeling soap opera-ish or voyeuristic, Olympus, Texas portrays the messy realities of modern relationships and blended families ... Swann immerses readers in small-town life while generously endowing each character with depth and agency ... Swann’s rich and compelling novel will delight anyone anxiously awaiting the next season of HBO’s Succession.
Swann's debut is rich in Texas flavor and full of nods to classical mythology—quotes from Ovid, twins human and canine, and the kind of relentless bad luck that usually means you've offended a deity ... A total page-turner.
... luminous ... Rife with allusions to mythology, this epic makes the most of its vivid Texan setting, becoming as well a love letter to the state’s rugged beauty and homegrown familiarity. This teems with skillfully evoked drama and tragedy.
