About this ebook
From the award-winning author of Halfway House: a “heartfelt and heartbreaking story” of a woman whose life unravels while her husband is hospitalized (Library Journal).
Claire Hood has never had a typical family. When she was nine, her father fell in love with a married woman, and the two households agreed to live under one roof. Nicknamed “the Naked Family,” they were infamous in the community for their eccentric, free-spirited lifestyle. Now, in their thirties, her stepsister Nicole is planning to having a baby on her own, and Claire’s husband, Jeremy, longs to start a family as well. But Claire wants to avoid an ordinary existence at all costs.
When Jeremy becomes seriously ill, his high school sweetheart, Gita, is a bit too eager to lend a hand in his recovery. As Claire’s suspicion of their relationship grows, she feels increasingly estranged from her own life. Faced with Nicole’s impending motherhood and Jeremy’s increasing closeness with his ex, Claire must resolve lingering childhood hang-ups and decide what she’s willing to sacrifice for independence.
“An unflinching autopsy of the heart, laying bare the raw emotions that push us to reconfigure, again and again, our senses of family.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Noel beautifully captures the difficulties and insecurities that make up marriage, sisterhood, and how our upbringing bleeds into our adulthood . . . showing how family can both bring us together and tear us apart.” —Library Journal
Claire Hood has never had a typical family. When she was nine, her father fell in love with a married woman, and the two households agreed to live under one roof. Nicknamed “the Naked Family,” they were infamous in the community for their eccentric, free-spirited lifestyle. Now, in their thirties, her stepsister Nicole is planning to having a baby on her own, and Claire’s husband, Jeremy, longs to start a family as well. But Claire wants to avoid an ordinary existence at all costs.
When Jeremy becomes seriously ill, his high school sweetheart, Gita, is a bit too eager to lend a hand in his recovery. As Claire’s suspicion of their relationship grows, she feels increasingly estranged from her own life. Faced with Nicole’s impending motherhood and Jeremy’s increasing closeness with his ex, Claire must resolve lingering childhood hang-ups and decide what she’s willing to sacrifice for independence.
“An unflinching autopsy of the heart, laying bare the raw emotions that push us to reconfigure, again and again, our senses of family.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Noel beautifully captures the difficulties and insecurities that make up marriage, sisterhood, and how our upbringing bleeds into our adulthood . . . showing how family can both bring us together and tear us apart.” —Library Journal
About the author
Katharine Noel is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, where she formerly held a Stegner Fellowship. Her writing has won grants from the Henfield-Transatlantic, Barbara Deming, and Rona Jaffe foundations, among others, and was included in Best New American Voices 2003. She currently lives in San Francisco, where she is at work on her second novel.
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