Hey Harry, Hey Matilda

October 17, 2016
In her debut novel, Hulin explores the complicated relationship between 32-year-old fraternal twins, Harry and Matilda Goodman, through their email correspondence. Matilda is an eccentric Brooklyn-based wedding photographer, and Harry is an English professor at a Connecticut university hoping to publish and procure tenure. The content of their emails spans their daily experiences, worries about the future, and memories. They share secrets—Matilda admits that she told her boyfriend that her twin had died; Harry confides in her after making an unethical move in his career—while avoiding other secrets. Their messages are often laugh-out-loud funny, as when Matilda recounts the weddings she photographs, and when they forward each other emails from their philosophizing, self-absorbed father. As the siblings meander through various topics, some messages seem superfluously detailed; however, this slowly leads to a disclosure that puts their correspondence into a different light. Visual cues seem integral to Hulin’s project—Matilda illustrates feelings with diagrams, and photographs separate each section. Though the narrative is constrained by the epistolary form, even when the twins prompt each other to write a scene “like a movie” or “like a story,” the book is an entertaining caper and a thought-provoking look at family, memory, and the complexities of love.

October 1, 2016
Epistolary novel about endearing and indecent siblings.Twins Matilda, an artist who is making ends meet as a wedding photographer, and Harry, a writer and professor, have a candid and close relationship. Matilda is bold, spiritual, and self-centered while Harry is stoic, smart, and sarcastic; both are creative and funny. Communicating via email, they share most every aspect of their lives with one another: from the details of their romantic relationships to anxieties about work (Harry is desperate for the stability of tenure) and health (Matilda is sure she's destined for a horrible disease). At first the pair seem like ordinary, if tightknit, siblings. But during the course of the novel (which takes place over a year, from September to September) it becomes clear that they are not always scrupulous. Harry falls in love with one of his students, a move morally ambiguous in itself, and makes matters worse by claiming one of her poems is his when submitting it for publication in the New Yorker. The subsequent acclaim gives him the career security he has been longing for, but at what cost? Matilda makes her own dubious choice, building an entire relationship with her boyfriend on the foundation of a lie: that her twin brother is dead. These are just two moments in what turns out to be a lifelong series of ethically questionable behaviors. Yet despite their misdeeds, despite the final, shocking truths of their relationship, Harry and Matilda remain sympathetic charactersperhaps because of what the reader comes to know about the many failings of their parents or perhaps because of the twins friendship, their badinage and bond. This is the first novel from Hulin, whose previous book, Flying Henry (2013), is a childrens fantasy-photography book. Her writing excels in its ability to make the twins appealing. The email-exchange format leaves the reader feeling closely connected to the characters while Hulins humorous and intimate prose redeems them. A novel as remarkably witty as it is frightful.

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December 1, 2016

Twins Matilda and Harry Goodman are both going through a rough patch. At 32, she is a struggling wedding photographer and he is a literature professor on a not-so-fast tenure track, trying to get published to boot. Both are looking for love, and Matilda thinks she's found it in a dermatologist she meets online, while Harry believes his future is with one of his students, whom he makes the unethical decision to sleep with. Hulin's first adult novel (after the children's photo book, Flying Henry) is told entirely in emails between Matilda and Harry, which makes their personalities jump right off the page. Full of sibling banter, online fights, and more, this adult debut is a fun, quirky read that is perfect for those who enjoy a good dose of laughter with their familial fiction. Hulin keeps up the pace as she drops in lies, scandal, and misguided ambitions throughout this punchy tale. VERDICT This quick read can easily be devoured in one sitting, and a surprise twist will leave readers waiting for Hulin's next work.--Erin Holt, Williamson Cty. P.L., Franklin, TN

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2016
Photographer and essayist Hulin's debut novel explores the relationship between thirtysomething fraternal twins Harry and Matilda Goodman. The plot, divided into six parts and spanning a year, is delivered via the rapid-fire e-mail correspondence between the siblings. Harry, a nontenured English professor at an unnamed university in the country, and Matilda, a frustrated artist who pays her bills doing wedding photography in New York City, are disillusioned, angsty, and seeking the answers to life's big questions amid a myriad of disastrous, hilarious choices. The unsettling truth at the heart of their relationship is revealed as the two trade zingers, advice, and tender reminiscences about their close, yet separate, adolescence (each grew up with a different parent after a divorce). Hulin's razor-sharp and sardonic writing propels this page-turner to a resolution that is equal parts happy and disturbing. Fans of recent tragicomic epistolary novels like Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2012) and Cecilia Ahern's Love, Rosie (2004) will find much to enjoy here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)