The Interestings

A Novel

By: Meg Wolitzer

Narrated by: Jen Tullock

“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 New York Times best-selling novel by Meg Wolitzer that has been called "genius" (Chicago Tribune), “wonderful” (Vanity Fair), "ambitious" (San Francisco Chronicle), and a “page-turner” (Cosmopolitan), which The New York Times Book Review says is "among the ranks of books like Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom and Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot."

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 15 is not always enough to propel someone through life at age 30; 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.

©2013 Megan Wolitzer (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Interesting yes, compelling no

I went to camp,made good friends and grew up on the east coast so this book was an okay read. The characters were well drawn but almost too pat and the story sagged in the middle which I believe is one of the possible shortcomings for a story that takes place over so many years. I enjoyed it and didn't stop reading it, but I wouldn't highly recommend it.

Interesting in a quiet way.

This book follows 6 people that live in NYC (but only 4 intensively) that met at a summer camp for the arts in the 70’s when they are teenagers. They become best friends and stay connected throughout the next 40 or so years. The book is mostly told thru Jules Jacobson’s eyes, the most normal one of the bunch. Jules and her friends are all interested in becoming artists of one form or another, but only one of them actually becomes famous for his talents. They all differ in their levels of talent and creativity and we see how this affects each of them. There is not a ton of plot in this book unless you count normal life as a plot. People get married, have babies, become famous, don’t become famous, experience death of loved ones, and a whole slew of other life experiences. I guess the getting famous part or knowing anyone famous isn’t really part of any normal life, but the rest of the book is about “normal” life occurrences. There is a bit of heavier drama that happens between 2 of the friends early on in the book, but it isn’t really the main focus of the story. I found all of this to be interesting, even though I think “The Interestings” is a bit of a misleading title for the book. The friends decide to call themselves this while attending Spirit-In-The-Woods, the summer camp. These people are semi-normal with flawed personalities and I think that’s what makes them interesting to me. These friends differ widely in money, class and fame, especially in relation to Jules. She is not as talented or rich or as beautiful as the others and sometimes this matters and sometimes it doesn’t. As in real life, secrets exist and the reader is left to ponder the morals/ethics behind them. Wolitzer created interesting (no pun intended) enough characters that I ultimately cared what happened to them even if there wasn’t terribly engaging plot twists along the way. I thought there was a bit a of hole in the book when Jules’ and Ash’s children are growing up… somewhere in the early teenage years. I felt that the rest of their lives was explained more thoroughly, but that was only a minor bump I found in the road of “The Interestings.” Wolitzer provides a lot of flashbacks from the past as she moves forward through the story and it can be confusing at times to keep up with the timeline, but after a while I got used to this writing style. Also, she is pretty amazing when it comes to imagery.

Loved it.

I had heard so many good things about this book and I have to say it all lived up to the praise it received. I loved the pace of the book; going from adulthood to childhood to adulthood and the same stories told from different perspectives of various characters. I thought the
the narrator was terrific. Highly recommend.

One for my life

Being 17 in 1972, this is an epic book of my cohort. Woven into this dynamic story of friendship, she captured the nuance of a generation.
Flawlessly moving between the years, it is written with such fluidity the story unfolds with a depth of emotion and understanding of what it is to grow up. I sent it to all my friends.

Might be better as an inaudible book

If you could sum up The Interestings in three words, what would they be?

insightful, alienating, sad

Who was your favorite character and why?

I found Goodman Wolf believable and enjoyed his sad journey.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

This was my biggest complaint. The way she reads it, all of the characters have a disdainful, superior edge. It gets tiresome, and I started to wonder if maybe I would've done better just to buy the actual book instead. At times I felt like I was being told that the characters liked each other, but I didn't understand why. Many characters are described as being funny, and but they're not. I would give the narrator high marks on giving each character a distinct sound, and nailing the various accents.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, I was "able to put it down." But I did enjoy it and looked forward to taking it up each time I started in again.

Any additional comments?

I found the dramatic parts compelling and involving, but it never made me laugh once. The "witty" banter among the characters was, at best, mildly clever, and never actually funny. I cried a few times, but I was never close to laughing, and I think it would've made the whole thing richer if it could've risen above its earnestness at times, and made me giggle. I went to camp and made tight friendships there, and it wasn't all badinage and witty ripostes. We were also warm and silly with each other, and this doesn't capture that at all.

Best book I've read this year!

It took me a little while to get into the story, but once I did it was totally engrossing. If you were to describe the plot of The Interstings to someone it wouldn't sound like that good of a book, but once you get past the first few chapters you find yourself feeling really invested in the lives of each character who each had their own distinct voice and personality.

I love this book, it was really well written and the voice actor was really talented.

interesting!

Unbelievably interesting! Just a great book, from start to finish, it's really what life is all about! The narrator was perfect for this book's sarcasm and seriousness. I want all of my friends to read this book!

I enjoyed it!

The narrator was phenomenal especially because she had different voices for each character! The storyline was exceptional and enjoyed it a lot!

Well written and compelling, but depressing

Would you try another book from Meg Wolitzer and/or Jen Tullock?

Yes. The writing is crisp and the story moves. The narration is very good. I'm impressed by Jen Tullock's ability to maintain all the character voices, even evolving as they age, and do accents.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

The ending allowed me to look back over the entire book and realize how depressing these character's lives are. It was definitely an appropriate ending to the book and helped me to clarify why I found the entire story to be depressing...

Have you listened to any of Jen Tullock’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Did The Interestings inspire you to do anything?

Read more books!

"Interesting" enough but nothing special

I found this appealing but I'm sure many listeners will be annoyed by the mostly well-off East Coast young people whining about what they don't have or can't do. It could have been shorter. Also it's mostly in chronological order but then items will be thrown in out of order for no particular reason.

The characters' happiest times are in high school at their arts camp. For many of us, being an adult is way better than adolescence but those people keep trying to return to their youth, which of course never works.

The narration is very good and it kept my attention. It's an interesting contrast with Shotgun Lovesongs, which is also about a group of friends in middle age regretting their lost youth. I think that one was deeper than this book.