Book Review
The Interestings
by Meg Wolitzer
Here, Meg Wolitzer has given us a delicious, utterly absorbing novel of epic scope, concerning six characters who meet as teenagers in 1974 at an exclusive summer arts camp. They ironically refer to themselves as ‘the interestings’, and we follow them through the years as they reach middle-age, shifting from youths who dream of being extraordinary adults, into adults who, for the most part, still cling to the same dream.
Sitting easily within the tradition of other big contemporary American authors – there is something Eugenides-Franzen-esque at play here, though Wolitzer has a sense of humour and skewed perspective of characters that is completely her own – The Interestings takes a hard look at that grand American narrative of self-invention and asks, is that all just myth?
Jules, the character who sits at the heart of the novel, is the outsider of the group; she’s granted a bunk at Spirit-in-the-Woods summer camp due to special circumstances, and from the beginning, knows she’s less glamorous than her peers. If this story followed the typical trajectory of the self-invention story, she would no doubt be the one who attains fame and success through hard work.
But Jules recognises early that she doesn’t have what’s needed to be an actress, and settles, begrudgingly, into mediocrity. Instead, the most successful of the group is Ethan Figman – a genius at animation who develops his own hit television series – but even his success is tempered by other elements in his life, most notably, a failure to connect with his son. The other’s own successes either come at a price, or don’t come at all, and jealousies and deceit play a key role here as the friends compare their lives.
Throughout the novel, Jules continually questions where her life is at, and struggles to understand how those teenagers from Spirit-in-the-Woods are one and the same as the adults she knows now. At one point, frustrated with her attitude, Jules’ husband – a self-professed ordinary man – asks of her, ‘Most people aren’t talented. So what are they supposed to do – kill themselves?’ A terrific novel that I couldn’t put down.
Bronte Coates
