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 I resisted "Hello Beautiful" because I thought the title was cloying. But the reviews were so strong, I changed my mind.


Flannery O'Connor made a famous remark about "mystery and manners," i.e., every writer needs to focus both on the cosmic and on the apparently mundane. Big and small: These features go hand in hand. Big mysteries: Where do we go when we die? If I know that my time is limited, what do I do with my life? Tiny details: How do two people greet each other? How does a head librarian signal (wordlessly) that she is annoyed with one of her employees?

"Hello Beautiful" has a great first paragraph. A little girl falls ill; her mother goes into labor with a second child. The new baby needs to stay in the NICU; during the NICU weeks, the sick older sibling actually dies. When the remaining members of the family finally gather at their house, the ghost of the little girl haunts every room. The two parents withdraw their love from the living infant--because they are shattered. And, weirdly enough, life goes on.

Ann Napolitano is not a flashy stylist, but she grabs you by the throat. Her protagonist, William, is hobbled by a lack of love, but it seems like he might be scrappy enough to survive. Or maybe not? When he marries, his chilly parents refuse to attend the wedding, but they do send an envelope. William becomes a little giddy; maybe the piece of mail is an apology, with a soul-searching explanation for twenty years of iciness. No: The envelope has a check for $10,000, and the note says, "Congratulations on graduation/wedding." We follow William as he tries to explain his situation to his in-laws: "The people in my family are not terrible. They are just really struggling..."

It's a pleasure to find a thoughtful, old-fashioned novel in 2023. What a gift.
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