Hello Beautiful

William

February 1960 ­December 1978

For the first six days of William Waters s life, he was not an only child. He had a three-­year-­old sister, a redhead named Caroline after John F. Kennedy s daughter. There were silent home movies of Caroline in which William s father looked like he was laughing, a sight William never saw again. His father s face looked open, and the tiny redhead, who pulled her dress over her face and ran in giggling circles in one of the movies, was apparently the reason. Caroline developed a fever and a cough while William and his mother were in the hospital after his birth. When they came home, the little girl seemed to be on the mend, but the cough was still bad, and when her parents went into her room to get her one morning, they found her dead in her crib.

William s parents never mentioned Caroline while William was growing up. There was one photograph of her on the end table in the living room, which William traveled to occasionally in order to convince himself that he d actually had a sister. The family moved to a navy-­shingled house on the other side of Newton ­a suburb of Boston ­and in that house, William was an only child. His father was an accountant who worked long hours downtown. With his daughter gone, the man s face never opened again. William s mother smoked cigarettes and drank bourbon in the living room, sometimes alone and sometimes with a female neighbor. She had a collection of ruffled aprons that she wore while preparing meals, and she became agitated whenever one became stained or messy.

Maybe you shouldn t wear the aprons while you cook, William said once, when his mother was red-­faced and on the verge of tears over a dark blotch of gravy on the fabric. You could tuck a dish towel in your belt instead, like Mrs. Kornet does.

His mother looked at him as if he d spoken in Greek. William said, Mrs. Kornet, who lives next door? Her dish towel?

From the age of five, William would walk to the

Ann Napolitano is the author of Dear Edward, which was an instant New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna selection, and is now an Apple TV+ series. She is also the author of the novels A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach. For seven years, Napolitano was the associate editor of the literary magazine One Story, and she received an MFA from New York University. She has taught fiction writing at Brooklyn College’s MFA program, New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and Gotham Writers Workshop.

Radiant and brilliantly crafted . . . Napolitano s [work] resists the easy satisfactions of the sentimental and never settles for simple answers to emotional predicaments faced by her characters. The New York Times Book Review (Editors Choice)

This sumptuous family saga is one of those rare novels whose singular characters are so beautifully rendered, it s as if they re your best friends, and you re grateful to be in their orbit. Oprah Quarterly
 
Hello Beautiful will make you weep buckets because you come to care so deeply about the characters and their fates. . . . [Napolitano] compels us to contemplate the complex tapestry of family love that can, despite grief and loss, still knit us together. She helps us see ourselves and each other whole. The Washington Post
 
  A sprawling, hugely affecting novel [filled with] empathetic characters and rich writing . . . [Hello Beautiful] has rightfully earned comparisons to Louisa May Alcott s Little Women, with its four close, vibrant sisters and the lonely outsider who infiltrates their circle. Shondaland

This is a warm blanket of a book, one that reminds you of the enveloping power of literature and leaves you very grateful to have encountered it. Vogue
 
Little Women fans will be endeared by Hello Beautiful's homage to the March siblings, in the form of the four Padavano sisters. Any lover of a sweeping family saga will be moved by the Padavanos unraveling. Harper s Bazaar

Napolitano s novel will make you think deeply about sisterhood and what we choose to share with those we love. Town & Country
 
Can love make a broken person whole? That is the simple but compelling question at the center of . . . this engrossing and emotional family drama. E! Online
 
Absorbing. AARP
 
Napolitano is a master of examining what binds us to family, what makes