Skip to main content

About Books

 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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

  When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

 Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...