Halfway House

author
Katharine Noel

the spiel
Halfway House is remarkable—a fearless, graceful book about the complicated relationships that make up a family.  One day, in the middle of a swim meet, Angie Vooster—all-star swimmer, and Ivy-League-bound high school senior—dives to the bottom of a pool and stays there.  And in that one fluid moment, everything her family knows about one another, and what they each, individually, believe is irreparably altered.  Katharine Noel explores the oh-so fine line of sanity, and the delicate distinction between on-gong crisis and merely “life.”  A stunning debut from a brilliant new author. Put Ms. Noel on your radar.

some of the hype
“Noel's stunning debut novel moves us through painfully believable human relationships tested, repaired, and transformed by time and experience. . . . This is suburban angst in the tradition of John Cheever and Rick Moody, told with a rare and honest sympathy that rings true by an author to watch.”
— Library Journal (starred review)

“With these characters, Katharine Noel brings us a whole world, carved in sharp relief, as it moves in and out of madness. A brilliant novel. There is nothing like this; it feels just like life.”
— Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli

“In Katharine Noel’s stunning debut novel, family life is revealed — laid open — in all its love and warmth and, yes, its darkness, too. Mother and daughter, husband and wife, sister and brother, father and son: each character lives on the page, and together they teach us the best lessons of fiction: how we live, and how we live through crisis. I was enthralled.”
— Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier

“Can this really be Katharine Noel's first book? Halfway House is written with such fearless grace, such originality of vision, it reads like the work of a master. Noel has an uncanny ability to render the complicated relationships between brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives. She slips into the darkest corners of human experience so adroitly that you're not aware how deep you've gone until you find yourself laughing or weeping over the page. The book becomes an obsession, its characters so real you can't bear to turn away. This is the kind of novel that creates ardent fans; without a doubt, it is the beginning of a brilliant literary career.”
— Julie Orringer, author of How To Breathe Underwater

other things this author has written
All you aspiring authors out there, better tie off and shoot up now; Halfway House is a first.