As members of a political family, Greta and Nick Harrison have not known any other kind of life. Their father was in the House of Representatives until his death in a car crash when they were still young. Their mother, Nancy, took over his congressional seat and proved herself a capable leader and effective legislator in her own right, continuing to win reelection.

Now Nancy’s children are young adults, and she has set her sights on a bigger prize: the US Senate. Her opponent is a beloved actor who once played a politician on a popular television show. Nancy is down in the polls, especially with baby boomers, and she knows that her entire family will be under scrutiny during the campaign.

"The novel is structured like a play, in five acts, and much like Chekhov’s gun, small details that seem to be just part of a backstory end up playing pivotal roles in the plot."

That’s why, when Greta is captured on video hurling a champagne bottle through a restaurant window during a protest in Paris, Nancy goes on the offensive. She deputizes Nick --- who’s now teaching full-time at NYU after working for a few years as her speechwriter and “fixer” --- to head to Paris and bring Greta back into the family fold, like it or not. Nick, who wants nothing more than to spend time with his new boyfriend and work on his Joan Didion–inspired musical (“Hello to All That!”), grudgingly agrees.

The narrative of Nick’s attempts to redeem Greta --- and the increasingly absurd situations that result --- is interspersed with the recent history of the Harrisons and the circumstances that led Greta away from her nice progressive political family and into the arms of a French nationalist so extreme in his views and approach that Marine Le Pen calls him “a nasty little troll.”

The novel is structured like a play, in five acts, and much like Chekhov’s gun, small details that seem to be just part of a backstory end up playing pivotal roles in the plot. It’s packed with numerous well-developed and convincingly entertaining supporting characters, especially Nancy’s beleaguered campaign staff. It’s also a mystery of sorts; readers discover what drove Greta to make such a seemingly irrational life choice.

LET’S NOT DO THAT AGAIN is observant, full of funny occurrences and dialogue, especially as Nancy’s desperation to get elected pushes her, and everyone around her, into truly extreme situations. As bizarre and (hopefully) unrealistic as these circumstances become, Grant Ginder’s novel also raises genuine questions about the lengths to which politicians might go in order to win their campaign, as well as the toll taken on a politician’s family.