Note: Major spoilers for the book Hello Beautiful
The last time I saw my father in person was sixteen years ago, when I was seven years old and receiving my first Holy Communion. In the seven years that followed, we talked on and off over the phone until my father passed away unexpectedly. Whether I could recognize it or not at the time, growing up without a father was a formative and sometimes hardening experience. It prepared me for future heartbreak in a way that only family can, but it also prepared me to be more compassionate than is often expected of me.
I recently finished reading Ann Napolitano’s immersive novel, Hello Beautiful, which made me think about my dad in new and eye-opening ways. The novel begins by describing the character of William Waters and the solitary and loveless childhood he endures. As the reader, we are immediately plunged within William’s world — expected to understand his struggles, his silences, his love of basketball, and more than anything, his lack of self-regard.
When William is unexpectedly thrust into fatherhood at a young age, he struggles to keep his depression at bay. In a desperate move to protect both himself and his young daughter, he relinquishes his parental rights and totally compartmentalizes his role as a father — sequestering any thoughts of his daughter to a small, often locked up part of his mind.
The plot of Hello Beautiful centers around the four Padavano sisters (Julia, Sylvie, Emeline and Cecelia) and includes several parallels to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. The girls’ father, Charlie Padavano, is depicted as a deadbeat throughout the first part of the book, a charming alcoholic who loves his daughters deeply but has failed to do anything substantive with his life. Ultimately, it is only after Charlie’s untimely death that his daughters view him with a respect and understanding often reserved for those we grieve.
My father too was an alcoholic and effectively relinquished his parental rights to me when I was very young. But while I expected to despise the characters of William Waters and Charlie Padavano when reading Hello Beautiful, I found myself feeling compassionate and sympathetic towards them throughout the novel’s duration.
Reading Hello Beautiful marked the first experience I’ve ever had of reading a book where an absentee father and his daughter are both treated with respect and understanding as wholly unique individuals. There are no caricatures here — there are mistakes, accountability and the growth that stems from having made poor choices.
In the middle of the novel, the below passage is shared to describe Sylvie Padavano:
“Sylvie leaned against the wall. Because she was clear about what she didn’t want, she was alone. She was no longer who she used to be, and she wasn’t yet whoever she was becoming. She was grateful that her father had prepared her for this type of hard, lonely ground. Because of him, Sylvie knew she could exist outside the boundaries of her past and future selves, for a little while, anyway. Even though it hurt. She understood now, though, why her father had tempered the brutal beauty of this kind of life — this kind of honesty — with alcohol, and why she had always been more comfortable in the library with books than in the world with people.”
Wow. It may be suffice to say that we are often more similar to those who have hurt us than we care to admit.
At the very end of the novel, William begins the process of reconciling with his now grown daughter, Alice, who in turn begins the process of learning how to forgive and understand her father.
In truth, I will be learning how to forgive and understand my father for many more years to come. But Hello Beautiful both made me feel seen and helped me seek an understanding of my father in a way that no novel has ever done before. This itself is a beautiful gift I will always be grateful for.
