A Piece of My History: A Guest Post from Ann Napolitano
Ann Napolitano needs no introduction — from her bestselling novel Dear Edward to the stunning world of Hello Beautiful, she is no stranger to our bookshelves. But what of her very first novel? The author of Our Monthly Pick Within Arm’s Reach explores the journey of her first publication to her latest, and the threads between them. Hear from Ann, in her own words.
Paperback $18.00
Within Arm's Reach: A Novel
Within Arm's Reach: A Novel
In Stock Online
Paperback $18.00
Fans of Alice McDermott and Ann Patchett — we have a must-read for you. From the award-winning author of Hello Beautiful and Dear Edward, this is the debut novel that put her on the map.
Fans of Alice McDermott and Ann Patchett — we have a must-read for you. From the award-winning author of Hello Beautiful and Dear Edward, this is the debut novel that put her on the map.
Dear Reader,
Over the past few years, many readers have reached out to me to say how difficult it is to find a copy of my first novel, which had gone out of print. To my delight, my current publisher has decided to reissue the book and make it widely available again, nearly twenty years after its initial release. As lovely as this news is, at first it gave me some trepidation. I wrote Within Arm’s Reach a lifetime ago and I don’t reread my work, so I hadn’t looked at the pages in two decades. While I was writing it, I was convinced that it would never be published. I’d already written two other failed books when I was in my twenties, so I had little reason to think this time would be different. Within Arm’s Reach exists only because, in the face of failure, I’d learned how deeply I loved writing and how essential the practice is to who I am.
When I sat down to reread Within Arm’s Reach, I was relieved to find that I still loved the characters, and their world. I could see its connection to my most recent book, Hello Beautiful. Both contain stories from the family I grew up in; both are about families struggling to love one another. In Within Arm’s Reach, there is an unexpected pregnancy that shakes the McLaughlin family to its core. The grandmother in the novel, Catharine, is based on my own petite, steely grandmother, and there’s a nurse named Noreen with whom I would have loved to be friends in real life. The two sisters, Gracie and Lila, remind me of myself in my late twenties, when I was deeply worried that I would never figure out how to shape my adulthood.
I’m proud of my younger self for persevering–she could have easily given up after two failed books. I had so little belief in my writing ability when I wrote Within Arm’s Reach, so little belief in my right to be a writer at all, that it feels miraculous and brave that I summoned this story and put it down on the page. I am grateful to the woman I was when I wrote this book—and to the characters within it, who paved a path to the woman I’d become. Most of all, I am grateful to the wonderful readers whose interest led to this novel being reissued. I hope they enjoy Within Arm’s Reach, which is of course both a piece of my history, and my heart.
—Ann
