The Catch
A Novel
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- ¥1,100
発行者による作品情報
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A young woman searches for the truth about her father—and the secrets of her family—in this “big-hearted debut that absolutely crackles with smarts” (Emma Straub).
“A warm and funny debut novel . . . perceptive, wry, and witty.”—The New York Times
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar
Two years out of college, Ellie Adler has a job in journalism, an older lover, and a circle of smart friends. Her beloved father, James, who has children from three marriages, unites the family with his gentle humor and charisma, but Ellie has always believed she is her father's favorite. When he suddenly dies, she finds herself devastated by the unexpected loss. Then, at the reading of his will, she learns that instead of leaving her his prized possession—a baseball that holds emotional resonance for them both—he has left her a seemingly ridiculous, even insulting gift. Worse, he’s given the baseball to someone no one in the family has ever heard of.
In her grief, Ellie wonders who could have possibly meant more to her father than she did. Setting out to track this person down, she learns startling information about who her father really was and who she herself is becoming. Moving, witty, and unforgettable, The Catch is a story of the gifts we’re given over the course of a lifetime, by family, friends, and strangers—the ones we want and the ones that catch us unawares.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Fairbrother's perceptive debut, a young journalist is left reeling and looking for answers after her father's sudden death. Ellie Adler, 24, a reporter at a D.C. news website, heads home to Maryland to visit her poet father, James, and her stepfamily. Ellie, the oldest, is happy believing she's her father's closest confidante and shares his writerly interests. Days later, he dies of a heart attack, and a bereft Ellie reads his most famous poem, "The Catch," at his funeral service, where an unknown woman attends. Later, Ellie begins looking into the woman's relationship with James, and tries to piece together why he bequeathed Ellie an unfamiliar tie rack and gave the lucky baseball she'd always wanted to a stranger named L.M. Taylor. Meanwhile, Ellie begins questioning her relationship with her boyfriend, an older, married man, after her roommate learns of the affair. She also parlays a work assignment into an investigation of Taylor's osprey conservation on the Chesapeake Bay to learn more about him. The minutiae of James's estate eventually wears thin, but Fairbrother ably captures Ellie's fractured world as a child of divorce, which fuels her motivation. This is a promising start.
