At a glance
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Niven, a novel about America’s favorite TV family, whose perfect façade cracks, for fans of Lessons in Chemistry and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s Favorite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now it’s 1964, and the Newmans’ idealized apple-pie perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves. Del is keeping an explosive secret from his wife, and Dinah is slowly going numb—literally. Steady, stable Guy is hiding the truth about his love life, and the charmed luck of rock ‘n roll idol Shep may have finally run out.
When Del—the creative motor behind the show—is in a mysterious car accident, Dinah decides to take matters into her own hands. She hires Juliet Dunne, an outspoken, impassioned young reporter, to help her write the final episode. But Dinah and Juliet have wildly different perspectives about what it means to be a woman, and a family, in 1964. Can the Newmans hold it together to change television history? Or will they be canceled before they ever have the chance?
Funny, big-hearted, and deeply moving, Meet the Newmans is a rich family story about the dual lives we lead. Because even when our lives aren’t televised weekly, we all have a behind-the-scenes.
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our word for it
"Wonderful in every way, Meet the Newmans held me spellbound from the first page. Wildly addictive, thought-provoking and funny, and with a stellar cast I fell in love with on the spot. I adored it.”
- Rosie Welsh, New York Times bestselling author of Ghosted
"Tapping into a keen sense of family fault lines, Jennifer Niven gives us the Newmans—a seemingly perfect television family who, once the cameras stop rolling, are barely holding it together in a rapidly changing world. Warm, witty, and wise, this is a novel about reclaiming the narrative when the cost of pretending becomes too high to bear.”
- Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest
"Turn off the TV and read this book! Meet the Newmans is a warm, humorous, emotionally resonant tale of family and feminism, exploring the hidden layers of our everyday lives.”
- Camille Perri, author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy
