Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

William found it hard to picture his parents’ faces. He saw them at the train station, waving, but their forms were blurry. The idea of his father being depressed had no traction in William’s mind; it just slipped away. These sessions with this doctor, who paid attention to him—sank her eyes into him like fishhooks—were exhausting.

William also used to worry about what he did and did not deserve, but no one around him seemed to think in these terms, and it turned out that he no longer did either.

He had the sensation that he had cut himself out of his own life, the way a child cuts a figure out of a blank piece of paper.

She’d had her eye on who William would become, after the next job offer or once he had a PhD after his name. He didn’t blame his wife for this conditional acceptance; he’d grown up with parents who’d never accepted him at all.

Sylvie began to wonder if being on a team was a different kind of commitment than she had previously understood.

He made himself look without wincing, without fear that he would extinguish their light and beauty with his gaze.

left. He knew that to get well, he needed to consider his wife, his childhood, and his failure to manage what had looked from the outside like a great life. He wasn’t ready yet, though. It was enough to simply know that the time was coming

It wasn’t just their height that was arresting but the purpose with which the men walked. They moved as the team they’d been in college—matching strides, taking directional cues from one another.

Sylvie had always thought that when, if, she wrote, it would have to be perfect. A beautifully crafted novel, ready to hand to the world. But William had shown her she could write for, and to, herself.