Politics and family don’t always mix, and in Louie on the Rocks, Meredith O’Brien explores an extreme example of this very phenomenon. With sharp, clear prose and a grounded tone, she captures a fascinating snapshot of American dysfunction in the Trump era.

Louie and Lulu might be father and daughter, but they’re living on different planets. Recently widowed Louie is a Fox News-watching, MAGA true believer who’s not afraid to make his incendiary opinions known on Facebook. Lulu is a queer bookseller whose progressive politics and vegetarianism enrage him. Since the death of Helen, Louie’s wife and Lulu’s mother, the two have been largely estranged.  

Despite their tortured relationship, Lulu is determined to protect her father, especially from himself. Helen’s death has sent Louie into a downward spiral — his drinking is out of control, his behavior is erratic, and he’s taken up with a 29-year-old dog-walker who appears to be robbing him blind. Thus begins a bitter battle, as Lulu petitions to place her father under a financial conservatorship and he scrambles to prove he can handle his own damn affairs.

The narrative is told via three perspectives — Louie, Lulu, and Helen (commenting from beyond the grave) — and is punctuated by affidavits from friends and family arguing both for and against the conservatorship. Everybody from neighbors and drinking buddies to coworkers and cops adds their two cents about Louie’s state of mind.

Through it all, his enthusiasm for Trumpism only grows. He sees anyone with a differing viewpoint as an enemy and looks at the world through a lens of anti-woke ideology that makes him unable to accept his daughter. The hatred and distrust he shows toward her is one of the more shocking aspects of the novel. It’s a cutting — and sadly plausible — portrayal of how deeply politics can divide people.

Poor Helen, unable to intervene as she watches the disastrous events unfold, is horrified by Louie’s treatment of Lulu and bitterly wishes she’d stood up to him more in life instead of always playing the peacemaker. In this way, she’s like a lot of people caught in the political middle, uncomfortable with much of modern conservatism but unwilling (or afraid) to rock the boat.

For readers of all political stripes, much of Louie on the Rocks will likely feel familiar. Lulu groans at the cruel memes and insults her father posts on Facebook, a platform that thrives on discord and hatefulness. Louie doesn’t see a problem. It’s easy to imagine this book one day — when MAGA inevitably recedes — being categorized as a simple, occasionally over-the-top satire. Future readers, laughing at the absurdity it portrays, may not understand just how true to life it is.

Haley Huchler is a writer from Virginia. She has written for publications including Northern Virginia Magazine and DC Theater Arts. She has a B.A. in English and journalism from James Madison University, where she was editor-in-chief of Iris, an undergraduate literary magazine.