It has been quite a year for lawyer Shari Olefson. First she joined the Tampa-based law firm of Fowler White Boggs. In April she published her first book, and how timely it was.

It's called Foreclosure Nation: Mortgaging the American Dream. Prometheus Books put it out. Foreclosure Nation doesn't play the usual woe-is-me-I-was-duped-by-predatory-lenders tune.

Olefson thinks Americans are so addicted to debt our penny-pinching grandparents would hardly recognize what they've spawned. And the government is so eager to protect us from ourselves, we might never learn the hard lessons of thrift and patience.

The 46-year-old attorney talked to the St. Petersburg Times about the foreclosure crisis as reflected in her book and law practice.

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What inspired you to write the book?

It was kind of an accident. I was running the title insurance division for First American (Corporation). I went to a financial services conference in San Diego in 2006. You know how those things are: Hanging out at the hotel bar everyone was complaining about early defaults on residential mortgages. When I was flying back home on the plane, I pulled out my laptop and the title just came to me....