50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

Don't Miss

  • Scientifically Proven Sale
  • Staff Top Fives of 2022
  • Best Books of 2022
  • Powell's Author Events
  • Oregon Battle of the Books
  • Audio Books

Visit Our Stores


Powell's Staff: New Literature in Translation: December 2022 and January 2023 (0 comment)
It may be a new year, this may be a list of new books, but our love for literature in translation hasn’t changed at all, and we are so pleased to be enthusiastically recommending these recent releases. On this list, you’ll find a Spanish novel where controversy swirls around a Coca-Cola billboard...
Read More»
  • Kelsey Ford: From the Stacks: J. M. Ledgard's Submergence (0 comment)
  • Kelsey Ford: Five Book Friday: Year of the Rabbit (1 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Halfway House

by Katharine Noel
Halfway House

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780871139344
ISBN10: 0871139340
Condition: Standard
DustJacket: Standard

All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
0.00
List Price:0.00
Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

One day, Angie Voorster — diligent student, all-star swimmer, and Ivy League–bound high school senior — dives to the bottom of a pool and stays there. In that moment, everything the Voorster family believes they know about one another changes. Katharine Noel's extraordinary debut illuminates the fault lines in one family's relationships, as well as the complex emotional ties that bind them together.

Set in a small town in New Hampshire, Halfway House is the story of Angie's psychotic break and her family's subsequent turmoil. Angie is a charismatic young woman — brilliant, witty, and passionate — until she swings to manic highs or dangerous lows. Each of her family members responds differently to the ongoing crisis: Her father Pieter, a Dutch-born professional cellist, retreats further into his music; her mother begins a destabilizing affair with a younger man; her younger brother, Luke, first distances himself as much as possible from his sister, then later drops out of college to be closer to her. And Luke's college girlfriend Wendy, who comes from a farming town in Iowa, provides an outsider’s perspective on the family’s teeter toward collapse. The Voorsters manage for a time to maintain a semblance of the normalcy they had "before," when they were the ideal New England family; it is not until Angie is finally able to fend for herself that the family is able to truly fall apart and then regather itself in a new, fundamentally changed way.

With grace and precision rarely seen in a first novel, Noel guides readers through a world where love is imperfect, and where longing for an imagined ideal can both destroy one family's happiness and offer redemption. Halfway House introduces a powerful, eloquent new voice.

Review

"This is suburban angst in the tradition of John Cheever and Rick Moody." Library Journal

Review

"[A] potent, informative, and compassionate novel." Booklist

Review

"Noel's representation of mental illness is sympathetic, but never romantic....It explores the mystery of family and its inexplicable, irresistible resilience in the face of affliction." Kirkus Reviews

Review

"With these characters, Katharine Noel brings us a whole world, carved in sharp relief, as it moves in and out of madness. A brilliant novel." Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli

Review

"In Katharine Noel's stunning debut novel, family life is revealed...in all its love and warmth and, yes, its darkness, too....I was enthralled." Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen's Pier

Review

"Can this really be Katharine Noel's first book?....This is the kind of novel that creates ardent fans; without a doubt, it is the beginning of a brilliant literary career." Julie Orringer, author of How To Breathe Underwater

Review

"Noel ventures far beneath the surface of mental illness and finds all the life and humor and humanity that is waiting below." Lily King, author of The Pleasing Hour and The English Teacher

Synopsis

One day, Angie Voorster — diligent student, all-star swimmer, and Ivy League-bound high school senior — dives to the bottom of a pool and stays there. In that moment, everything the Voorster family believes they know about one another changes. Set in a small town in New Hampshire, Halfway House is the story of Angie's psychotic break and her family's subsequent turmoil. Each of her family members responds differently to the ongoing crisis: Her father Pieter, a professional cellist, retreats further into his music; her mother begins a destabilizing affair with a younger man; her younger brother, Luke, first pushes away from her then later drops out of college to be closer to her. Though the Voorsters manage for a time to maintain a semblance of the normalcy they had "before," it is not until Angie is finally able to fend for herself that the family is able to truly fall apart and then regather itself in a new, fundamentally changed way. With grace and precision rarely seen in a first novel, Noel guides readers through a world where love is imperfect, and where longing for an imagined ideal can both destroy one family's happiness and offer redemption.

About the Author

Katharine Noel is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, where she formerly held a Stegner Fellowship. Previously, Noel lived and worked for two years on a farm with a group of adults with mental illnesses. She currently lives in San Francisco, where she is at work on her second novel.

5 1

What Our Readers Are Saying

Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 5 (1 comments)

`
laura , October 12, 2006
A vivid and sympathetic portrait of a young woman's struggle with bipolar disorder and its effect on her friends and family.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(10 of 21 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment




Product Details

ISBN:
9780871139344
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
03/01/2006
Publisher:
ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
Pages:
384
Height:
9 in.
Width:
6 in.
Number of Units:
1
UPC Code:
2800871139346
Author:
Katharine Noel
Subject:
Teenage girls
Subject:
FICTION / Literary

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
0.00
List Price:0.00
Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Used Book Alert for book Receive an email when this ISBN is available used.

This title in other editions

  • Used, Trade Paperback, $1.95
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##