We Spoke to Ann Napolitano. Here’s What We Learned.
By Allison Yates
Readers & runners watching Ann Napolitano virtually at Pilsen Community Books in the Pilsen neighborhood, Chicago.
In early June 2024, readers & runners gathered in the Pilsen neighborhood at Pilsen Community Books (one of the best indie bookstores in Chicago) for our Book Club Run of Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful. Programs Manager Fernanda guided the group on a three-mile route around Pilsen, stopping at various sites that connected readers & runners to the characters and their stories. After, we settled back into Pilsen Community Books for cookies from a local bakery and had a virtual Q&A with author Ann Napolitano (shout out to the readers & runners in Southern Illinois, Spain, and beyond who also joined us for this portion!).
About the book: “William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos. But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most? An exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic, Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a profoundly moving portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.” [Penguin Random House]
Throughout the time Ann spoke to us about her novel, the writing process, her background, and more, readers & runners got a window into her world.
Here’s what we learned.
The Book Title
Ann grew up on the East Coast, but had an uncle who lived in Chicago. Throughout her childhood, he’d send postcards with the greeting, “Hello Beautiful.” As her only experience with the city came via these postcards, she told us that as a child, Chicago was a magical world that existed only in her imagination.
In this article Ann wrote for Oprah Daily, she explains, “I knew my uncle didn’t really know what I looked like—I saw him very rarely—but that’s why I loved the greeting. It felt like he believed I was beautiful on the inside, and since (as an introverted, bookish child) my insides were the most significant part of me, I appreciated this. The title of my novel, and the fact that it’s set in the neighborhood of Pilsen in Chicago, is because of my uncle. Ed’s wife, Theresa, grew up in Pilsen, and she and Ed lived there for many years. When I was growing up, we visited my aunt and uncle (and my two cousins) once or twice, but most of my sense of Pilsen came from the postcards Ed sent. In childhood, magical lands rise up inside us, and my uncle and his mural-covered neighborhood was one of mine.”
Rudy Lozano
Ann shared that her aunt, Theresa, went to school with activist Rudy Lozano. Chicagoans will recognize this name from the Pilsen Branch of the Chicago Public Library.
The Padvano Sisters
The Padvano Sisters were inspired by a family she knew growing up. Ann made us all laugh when she described the intimacy and closeness she found in her friend Leah’s family, something she didn’t experience herself.
Reading as a Child
She says she was always an avid reader, and some of the books she read growing up "became part of her DNA.” She described the way that as a child soaking up the stories, plots, and characters of so many books, it was a completely different way of experiencing books than when she reads now—now that her DNA has been solidified.
Little Women Connections
If you’ve read Hello Beautiful, you may have compared the Padavano sisters to the March sister. Have you? Several readers & runners had this thought, and one even asked Ann during our Q&A if this was intentional. Turns out, it wasn’t! Ann told us that she wasn’t aware of any particular book that was influencing Hello Beautiful until she was well into the first draft. At that point, the Padavano sisters started to compare themselves to the sisters from Little Women. Once this happened, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen the connections earlier.
Copies of Hello Beautiful for sale at Pilsen Community Books.
She pays attention to her obsessions.
And we should do too. What your brain fixates on says a lot about what we should be working on. So whether it’s your next novel, an innovative idea, or a way to surprise your mom for her birthday, pay attention to where your thoughts (the good ones) drift to. It might be the next best thing you ever do.
The Writing Process
When Ann is researching for a book, she typically does tons of research on the topic she’s obsessed with over the course of about nine months. In the case of Hello Beautiful, it was social justice and its relationship to the history of basketball. During this time, she doesn’t allow herself to write at all. When this nine months period ended during Ann’s process of writing Hello Beautiful, it was April 2020, and her father passed away. Due to the pandemic, she tragically couldn’t really see him. This era of writing Hello Beautiful coincided with her grief, and as she described, led to her connections to the characters.
She’s a Soccer Fan.
Or at least happens to know a lot about it. She played growing up in a Division 3 school. Today, both her husband and kids play, too.