Author Talk: Meg Wolitzer

Author Talk Meg Wolitzer April 1, 2014 @ RJ Julia Booksellers (Madison, CT)	I don't have AmberBug's ninja-photo skills -- not to mention her normally amazing photo skills! -- so this cute author pic is one I borrowed from npr.org.
Dear Reader, On April Fool's Day (no joke!*), my sister Bethany drove down all the way from Sudbury, MA so we could attend Meg Wolitzer's author talk hosted by RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT.  This was a big commitment, yes, but we were both fans of the book and really wanted to hear what she had to say about it.  I first got to introduce Bethany to the charming RJ Julia store, which we entered through the cafe in back.  So of course that necessitated buying coffees and a ginormous cupcake to split - vanilla with strawberry frosting (yum!).  Then we found our seats for the reading and talk. I took copious notes on Wolitzer's discussion points, so I'll try to get them down in a coherent sort of way. First, she read an abridged version of Chapter One from The Interestings (see my initial Shelf Notes review here!).  She was a great reader (Bethany & I later commented on how she ought to have narrated her own audiobook!), engaging and funny and endearing.  And she clearly cared about her characters as she read them. Next, she took audience questions - including one from Yours Truly!  Here's a summation of what was asked & answered, as well as a few great Wolitzer quotes thrown in: MW went to summer camp in the Berkshires when SHE was the same age as the book characters - for acting (although she claims she had tried to adopt a horrid Katherine Hepburn voice!). She recalls a very talented girl (in the same acting program) who became a doctor, which initially surprised her - but then she realized that acting well requires a lot of empathy, and perhaps that was why she ultimately pursued that very different field. MW will be coming out with a YA book in the fall - titled Belzhar, which is a play on Plaths' The Bell Jar. She likes to write about adolescents. She made a best friend at camp with whom she lost touch for over 12 years, but then reconnected with. She finds she often has dreams of being at her old campsite, or of a return to camp. She believes The Interestings explores "that moment that life is at its most vivid" - it's when you find "your tribe, your people" - as she pointed out, that is usually where adults are NOT, when you are a teen!   That is really what the book is about - NOT summer camp, but those connections. Also, the tribe you WISH you were a part of - that you join by faking or weaseling your way in (akin to Jules' experience). I asked about the obvious similarities between Figland and The Simpsons,  and whether MW had based Ethan's character strongly or loosely on Matt Groening - she said VERY loosely, she hadn't done any research on him at all - she just chose that situation because the book was based in this 80s era when adult TV could offer cartoons on prime time, and that was a big change. The relationship between Jules and Ash went on such different trajectories, and it was difficult for them to stay friends through everything - the book "is about what happens to talent, but also about friendship & jealousy" - MW brought up the Russian word which translates to "white envy", which means that sort of positive envy you feel for loved ones.  She wanted to explore how the characters kept their friendships alive. MW's mother is an autodidact & writer; her father is a psychologist.  Her mother started writing late; they lived in Long Island at the time, and MW lived there until she was a college grad, then moved to NYC. The dinner party focuses very much on the then very current issue of AIDS - MW felt that she really needed to show what it was like to live during that time, when you lived in fear of losing friends and loved ones regularly.  Also, she wanted to convey what it felt like to live during the Reagan years, and made sure to insert references to now-defunct things such as PanAm and a NYC pub, and the WTC. "As a writer, you have to let your characters be annoying & also to stagnate - as people DO - life gets in the way of moving, etc." (re: Jules' stagnation in the awful apartment) The Goodman family was very entitled - MW: "it's interesting to track corruption & loyalty in a family, as opposed to a corporation" MW: "You don't have to love your characters, but you have to find them human & understand what they do." She doesn't like  to write autobiography because people tend to get upset. :) "Writers need a moral integrity" -- MW "Every books needs an imperative" -- MW She quoted Zadie Smith's "When I write, I am trying to express the way I live in the world." MW thinks readers are drawn into books where the writer is really trying to wrestle with something.  "You go into a store and pick up a book -- what makes you put it back down?" -- "The reader wants to know, Why are you telling me this? and if the author can't answer that, the reader doesn't want to engage." Novels must vie for your time in very crowded lives. MW loves Ethan - "I practically have a blow-up doll of him at my house" - she feels she has a sense of humor very like his. MW: "We want our writers to have great gravitas on the page but be very funny in talks." She told a funny joke about a grandmother and white-water rafting.  (Let me know if you want me to try & type it all out!  I'll try to do it justice...) MW: "A writer needs to keep piling it on like a layer cake." I also got AmberBug a little surprise...shhhh, don't tell! ;) (The author was kind enough to draw doodles in the books my sister & I bought.) Meg Wolitzer's off-the-top-of-her-head book recommendations: Mrs. Bridge The Imperfectionists: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle) The Days of Abandonment The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk All in all, my sister and I were thoroughly charmed by Meg Wolitzer.  I look forward to reading more of her work.  Yours, Arianna * Sorry, couldn't resist the bad pun!

The Interestings

The Interestings Meg Wolitzer 4/5	First Sentence "On a warm night in early July of that long-evaporated year, the Interestings gathered for the very first time."
Publisher's Description: From bestselling author Meg Wolitzer a dazzling, panoramic novel about what becomes of every talent, and the roles that art, money, and even envy can play in close friendships. The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable.  Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed.  In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence.  Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle.  Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer.  But Ethan and Ash, Jules's now-married best friends, become shockingly successful--true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding.  The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.  Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.  (Published 2013)
Dear Reader, There were parts of this book that I loved, and parts that were very good.  Ultimately, it didn't earn itself status in my Favorite Books Ever category, but I really enjoyed the read.  (Well, actually, the listen - the narrator was great at creating and maintaining distinguishing voices for everyone!)  It's interesting how identifiable I found it, despite that the characters were graduating from high school in the early 70s, not the late 90s. This book recalled to me the sweeping, multi-generational epics of a John Irving novel, complete with the way smaller stories were told in amongst the larger ones.  All of the characters were enjoyable to read about, and it was fascinating to watch as their lives collided, moved apart, and then wove back together, again and again.  I suppose "The Interestings" was an apt title, since the characters' lives were certainly interesting - I didn't want to put the book down, because it was very well-written.  However, naming the entire book after a group that called itself that only once or twice over decades, that was a little odd.  I suppose it really was the one thing that tied them all together - and pretty loosely, at that.  I recall at one point the author having Jules ponder whether they would have all been friends in their adult lives, not having met when they were teenagers.  That's always an interesting thought to ponder, as our friendships progress through years. That reminds me: I have to say, part of what I loved about this story was the nostalgia factor!  I too attended a summer arts camp when I was a teenager, and forged some extremely strong friendships of my own, there.  The memories Jules has of her last days at camp, with everyone upset to be leaving this place that was so theirs - I remember that feeling vividly.  While we'd only spent 5 weeks together, it was an experience that had changed our young lives, and one which we didn't want to end.  So, part of what I loved about this book was the common feelings I could share with Jules, in her long-lasting nostalgia for a place and time which she could not ever truly return to. The characters themselves were quite distinct and strongly written.  Their stories became the reader's stories, and you truly cared about what happened.  Did Goodman truly rape their now-former cohort?  Did his connection with Ash really help Ethan skyrocket to success, while Jules and Dennis struggled to make ends meet?  And Jonah, poor, sad Jonah - what could his life have been without the marring influence of a has-been folk singer? I think this book is a great study in characters and friendships as they grow and change from adolescence through adulthood.  The push and pull of relationships, of envy, of conditional and unconditional love.  I think it will ring true to anyone who has reached adulthood, but feels like maybe they never really did. Yours, Arianna P.S. Reading the Publisher's Description of the book over again reminded me that I kept thinking throughout the book of another book I read this year, called Generation Me. It was a non-fiction work about how children these days are encouraged to pursue their dreams, even if they don't necessarily have the talent or the luck for it.  This seemed to kind of be the case with this group of people; some had "it" and others did not.  And their lives worked out quite differently than they had thought they might when they were young.  Granted, this often happens whether a person is told they are "gifted" or not, but this book strongly reminded me of the arguments Jean M. Twenge makes in her book.