The Catch: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
“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.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Alison Fairbrother. (2022). The Catch: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Alison Fairbrother. 2022. The Catch: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Alison Fairbrother, The Catch: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group, 2022.
MLA Citation (style guide)Alison Fairbrother. The Catch: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group, 2022.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 2 | 2 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593134306
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B09GW3Q4HD
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593134306
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593134313
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Alison Fairbrother
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- The Catch
- dateAdded
- 2022-06-18T03:22:00Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=141&titleID=6935239
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Catch A Novel
- crossRefId
- 6935239
- subtitle
- A Novel
- id
- 8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156
- starRating
- 3.2
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: TheCatch_9780593134306_6935239
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 2169922
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593134306
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 0
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 6/21/2022
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=8ed64548-1905-48c6-804b-0aa11ff4c156&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: TheCatch_6935239
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B09GW3Q4HD
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 6/21/2022
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=8ed64548-1905-48c6-804b-0aa11ff4c156&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: TheCatch_9780593134306_6935239
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593134306
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 6/21/2022
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=8ed64548-1905-48c6-804b-0aa11ff4c156&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: secrets
- value: family
- value: relationships
- value: Friendship
- value: literary fiction
- value: family life
- value: contemporary fiction
- value: Journalism
- value: father
- value: love
- value: Coming of age
- value: Identity
- value: Death
- value: women
- value: memory
- value: Drama
- value: grief
- value: affair
- value: loss
- value: literature
- value: adult children
- value: realistic fiction
- value: summer reading
- value: book club recommendations
- value: beach reads
- value: summer reads
- value: the catch
- value: Literary gifts
- value: gifts for women
- value: coming of age books
- value: relationship books
- value: gifts for her
- value: good books for women
- value: realistic fiction books
- value: women gifts
- value: best books for book clubs
- value: alison fairbrother
- value: the catch book
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Fairbrother, Alison
- bioText: Alison Fairbrother is an associate editor at Riverhead Books. She worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., before getting her MFA at Stony Brook University. She lives in Brooklyn.
- name: Alison Fairbrother
- imprint
- Random House
- publishDate
- 2022-06-21T00:00:00-04:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- The Catch
- fullDescription
- 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. - reviews
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
January 1, 2022
Fresh out of college and happy with her job, her friends, and her lover, Ellie Adler is undone by the unexpected death of her father--not least because he leaves her an embarrassingly insignificant bequest while willing a baseball they both loved and valued to a stranger. Now Ellie is on a hunt to find out why. Fairbrother has interesting credentials: she's an associate editor at Riverhead Books and the granddaughter of E.L. Doctorow.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
April 11, 2022
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. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (June)Correction: A previous version of this review mischaracterized a plot point.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
April 15, 2022
Ellie's beguiling, charismatic father may have had four children with three different women, but Ellie came first, literally and in his heart, too. When his perplexing bequest indicates otherwise, the 20-something reporter will use--and misuse--all her skills to uncover the truth. It's 2012, and 24-year-old Eleanor Adler is living her post-college, first-real-job best life. She's in Washington, D.C., sharing a shambolic group home with roommates who clerk for federal judges and work at embassies and B-list agencies. She's a junior reporter for Apogee, a news startup that exists to get clicks and save journalism. She's seeing Lucas, a married 39-year-old think tanker, who takes her on dates to the Union Station food court and Maryland suburbs where they won't be seen. Ellie's hashtag-adulting takes a sudden and sad grown-up turn when her father unexpectedly drops dead in his Chesapeake Bay home. Although not exactly well-off, he was careful with his legacy, leaving each family member--third wife Colette; their son, Van; second-marriage daughters Sadie and Anna--a meaningful totem of his love. Except Ellie, who got a plastic gingerbread-man tie rack. It's 100% true that said plastic tie rack is a rather flimsy MacGuffin on which to hang a plot, and the central-casting characters (size 12 Ellie doesn't fit in and loves reading; attractive herbalist Colette visits a shaman) aren't exactly compelling. It's also true that they're good enough company, especially when punctuated by sharp, spot-on observations of journalism ("They can comment after we publish") and Washington life ("Sometimes it seemed as if people in their mid-twenties did all the work in D.C."), informed by the author's own decade reporting in the capital. Sure, go ahead and pack this for your next long weekend--it's fun! That said, it doesn't really need to make the trip home.COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
June 1, 2022
Journalist Eleanor Adler's life is upended when her father dies suddenly of a heart attack. With four children by three different mothers, James Adler's attention had always been divided. But as the oldest, Ellie always had a special bond with him. Ellie expects to inherit James' most treasured possession, a baseball that inspired him as he wrote poetry, but is shocked when she finds it's been left to a person she doesn't know. As Ellie searches for the mysterious L.M. Taylor, she also grapples with her emotions over her torrid affair with an older, married man. Fairbrother's debut is characterized by its elegant yet comfortable prose--readers will feel at home with Ellie as if experiencing the story's events along with her. The mystery drives the plot, but Ellie's personal growth is the heart of the novel. Her journey is braided in with her new knowledge of her father, and her father's past impacts hers as she learns who she truly is. This layered coming-of-age story will appeal to fans of Jennifer E. Smith's The Unsinkable Greta James (2022).COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- popularity
- 833
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/8ed64548-1905-48c6-804b-0aa11ff4c156/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 8ed64548-1905-48c6-804b-0aa11ff4c156
- starRating
- 3.2
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/{8ED64548-1905-48C6-804B-0AA11FF4C156}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Fiction
- value: Literature
- publishDateText
- 06/21/2022
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593134313
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
- 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... - sortTitle
- Catch A Novel
- crossRefId
- 6935239
- subtitle
- A Novel
- publisher
- Random House Publishing Group
- bisacCodes
- code: FIC019000
- description: Fiction / Literary
- code: FIC044000
- description: Fiction / Contemporary Women
- code: FIC045000
- description: Fiction / Family Life / General
