• Katharine Noel
  (author)
• Grove Press, Black Cat
  ,
  2016
• Purchase Online

“Nicole wasn’t actually my stepsister, but no other word fit any better. My father and her mother had fallen in love on a church committee. Breaking up two families would have caused needless damage, and so the adults decided that all seven of us should move to a new house together….”

And so we’re introduced to the two unlikely stepsisters at the heart of Meantime. Katharine Noel– the award winning author of the national bestseller Halfway House–delivers a funny, wise and moving novel of the stories we tell about the past, and how they inform our understanding of the present as well as our choices for the future.

Claire Hood’s unconventional upbringing in the “Naked Family”– as they were infamously nicknamed by their suburban neighbors–taught her to embrace the unexpected. Now in her thirties, Claire has a husband, Jeremy, who longs to start a family, but Claire’s blueprint in life is to avoid an ordinary existence at all costs.

At the same time, her stepsister Nicole has set her mind to having a baby on her own. Just as Nicole needs Claire more than ever, Jeremy falls seriously ill and his high school girlfriend resurfaces to lend a hand in his recovery. Everything Claire thinks she values–and everything she imagines about the kind of person she wants to be– is thrown into question.

With grace, humanity, and humor, Katharine Noel examines the complex, delicate connections between parents and children, spouses, and siblings. Meantime is a heartfelt, insightful novel of how individuals shape and reshape their families– both given and chosen–while discovering their truest sense of self.