The Interestings: A NovelNamed a best book of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Time, and The Chicago Tribune, and named a notable book by The New York Times Book Review and The Washington Post “Remarkable . . . With this book [Wolitzer] has surpassed herself.”—The New York Times Book Review "A victory . . . The Interestings secures Wolitzer's place among the best novelists of her generation. . . . 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."—Entertainment Weekly (A) From Meg Wolitzer, the New York Times–bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, a novel that has been called "genius" (The Chicago Tribune), “wonderful” (Vanity Fair), "ambitious" (San Francisco Chronicle), and a “page-turner” (Cosmopolitan). 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. |
Contents
| 3 | |
Section 2 | 32 |
Section 3 | 38 |
Section 4 | 53 |
Section 5 | 83 |
Section 6 | 99 |
Section 7 | 117 |
Section 8 | 142 |
Section 13 | 294 |
Section 14 | 318 |
Section 15 | 346 |
Section 16 | 370 |
Section 17 | 379 |
Section 18 | 395 |
Section 19 | 408 |
Section 20 | 424 |
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Common terms and phrases
actually Anaïs Nin anymore Ash and Ethan Ash Wolf Ash's banjo Barry Claimes Betsy called camp campers Cap'n Crunch Cathy Kiplinger Clark's Teaberry couple Dennis Boyd Dennis's dinner Edie Etan Patz Ethan and Ash Ethan Figman everything face father feel felt Figland friends fucking Gil Wolf girl Goodman Wolf Gudrun guitar Günter Grass hair hand happened head Iceland Isadora Jonah Bay Jules and Dennis Jules Jacobson Jules thought Jules's kids kind knew Larkin laughed looked Manny MAOI mother never night okay once parents play Robert Takahashi Rory seemed sitting smiled someone sound Spirit-in-the-Woods stayed stood street suddenly summer Susannah Bay talk teepee tell theater there's thing told took turned ultrasound voice waiting walked Wind Will Carry wondered Wunderlichs