Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Biography, Literature & Literary studies
Weblink
http://www.megwolitzer.com/

THE INTERESTINGS

Meg Wolitzer

From bestselling author Meg Wolitzer a dazzling, panoramic novel about what becomes of early talent, and the role that envy can play even in close friendships.

The summer of 1972, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. The book stretches from 1972 to 2012, so decades later the bond remains powerful, but much has changed.

The creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel one through life at age thirty, and in adulthood not everyone can sustain what seemed to be their adolescent specialness. Wolitzer captures that phenomenon of adolescence where all believe they are uniquely talented and special and interesting. They’ve been told this about themselves, and they’ve been placed in small, nurturing arenas – like this summer camp for artistic teens where the novel opens – that only suport these identities.

And then, what follows of course, is actual adult life, and the slow realization of how special they are NOT. Slowly, one by one, they make the life-changing decisions that they must, grappling with the question of passion versus work. Except that ONE of them really is wildly talented, and has the social instincts and mentorship to channel it into a successful artistic career. And when he becomes wildly famous and wealthy while also staying true to his artistic dreams, it introduces a new theme to the book: envy among one’s oldest and dearest friends.

Jules Handler, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. But her two best friends, now married to each other, become shockingly successful true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure, but Jules begins to harbor a suppressed envy that grows year after year, causing her great shame. How can she be envious of the people she loves most in life the people who have always loved her, too?

Wide in scope, ambitious, 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. The subject matter is spectacular, particularly with the benefit of Meg Wolitzer’s spot-on insights and keenly observant perspective.

MEG WOLITZER's previous novels include The Wife, The Position, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Uncoupling. She lives in New York City.

Available products
Book Published 2013-04-01 by Riverhead
Book Published 2013-04-01 by Riverhead

Comments

UK: Random House UK (Chatto) France: Editions Rue Fromentin Italy: Garzanti Libri Korea: Random House Korea Netherlands: Xander Uitgevers Turkey: Pegasus

...big, juicy novel...Wolitzer’s finger is unerringly on the pulse of our social culture.

The April issue of Elle compares the book to Franzen’s Freedom and Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot, noting that “one of the ways it differs from those two blockbusters is that Wolitzer’s women are fully realized,” and concluding that the book “soars, primarily because Wolitzer insists on taking our teenage selves seriously and, rather than coldly satirizing them, comes at them with warm humor and adult wisdom. Her portraits of adolescence are sympathetic to its mess of goofiness, pretension, irony, and vulnerability.”

Wolitzer’s buzzy tenth novel is a Franzen-like treatise on talent, fate, friendship, and the limits of all three.

You’ll want to be friends with these characters long after you put down the book.

This is The Interestings at its best, when it is guided by the author's quiet wisdom and takes you to its revelations the way that philosophers will unobtrusively steer their students toward truths while letting them think they had gotten there on their own.

A sprawling, ambitious and often wistful novel... Wolitzer is a stylish, intelligent writer who's as intrigued by ideas as by domestic drama.

Not only does The Interestings secure Wolitzer's place among the best novelists of her generation, but no one would ever put laundry on the cover of a book this good... She's every bit as literary as Franzen or Eugenides. But the very human moments in her work hit you harder than the big ideas. This isn't women's fiction. It's everyone's.

A remarkable novel whose inclusive vision and generous sweep place it among the ranks of books like Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and Jeffrey Eugenides "Marriage Plot". The Interestings is warm, all-American and acutely perceptive about the feelings and motivations of its characters, male and female, young and old, gay and straight; but is also stealthily, unassumingly and undeniably a novel of ideas. Wolitzer has been writing excellent fiction for 30 years and it has always been this astute . . . But here she has written a novel that speaks as directly to men as women. With this book she has surpassed herself. Don't just call her exceptional.

Like Virginia Woolf in "The Waves", Meg Wolitzer gives us the full picture here, charting her characters' lives from the self-dramatizing of adolescence, through the resignation of middle age, to the attainment of a wisdom that holds all the intensities of life in a single, sustained chord, much like this book itself. The wit, intelligence and deep feeling of Wolitzer's writing are extraordinary and "The Interestings" brings her achievement, already so steadfast and remarkable, to an even higher level."

THE INTERESTINGS debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List at #11!