JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Best-selling author Jennifer Weiner's latest book is about an early-aughts sister act called the Griffin Sisters. The band is centered around two young sisters, Cassie and Zoe, and they, along with their bandmate and songwriter Russell, become this immediate sensation with huge hit songs. They make the rounds on MTV and "Saturday Night Live," but that's before everything comes crashing down. Some two decades later, what happened to the Griffin Sisters is a mystery, and that's when we meet the characters of Cassie and Zoe. They've both moved on, living totally separate lives, and Zoe is trying to shield her teenage daughter from the pull of stardom. I talked to Weiner about "The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits" at her Philadelphia rowhouse.
I just want to start by asking you to tell me a little bit of the story behind the book. I was doing a little research, and I understand that the character of Cassie came to you on a trip that you and your husband took to Alaska.
JENNIFER WEINER: Yes. So there we were - we were talking about the people that we'd met and the conversations we'd overheard, because writers are fabulous eavesdroppers. And just thought about, like, a woman who - I could picture her in my head, sort of trudging around with, like, buckets full of cleaning supplies and, like, a giant parka with her hood pulled over her head and just running these Airbnbs but, like, taking such care to, like, never let anybody see her, never have to talk to anybody. And I just started thinking, like, who is this woman and what happened to her? Like, why is she here? What's her damage? What's the trauma? What brought her to this place?
SUMMERS: And so when you were conceiving of her when you were there on this trip, did the music connection come immediately or did that come later?
WEINER: That came later. Like, I knew that she was creative somehow, and I knew that something had hurt her. And I think it was just, like, you know, what if she was famous? What if she'd been, like, this hugely famous person who didn't want to be famous anymore and, like, this was the farthest away that she could run?
SUMMERS: Tell us a little bit about Cassie. Fill in some of the details for us.
WEINER: Poor Cassie. OK. So I was describing Cassie to a friend of mine, and I'm like, OK, so she's, like, a little bit - she's a bigger girl, and she's talented - like, extremely talented and very fluent in the language of music, but she has no idea how to talk to people. Like, she can't sort of, like, move through the world. And my friend is like, oh, so she's you. She's lonely, you know? She really, really wants to connect with people. The only person she's ever really connected with is her sister. And she sort of accidentally, as a favor to Zoe, ends up singing on stage, and she's got this gorgeous voice. And she can write songs, and she can play every instrument. And they become famous.
SUMMERS: Your book kind of takes us through the story of Cassie and Zoe in multiple different times. We meet them when they're young, and we're watching as their rise to fame plays out. But we also get to see the different ways in which they grapple with the big question at the center of the book, which is - what happened to the Griffin Sisters? And as we were talking about, Cassie goes as far away as she possibly can. She sort of disappears into herself. But Zoe sort of does that, too. She doesn't want any relationship with her former fame at the point that we meet her as an adult. And we meet her daughter, who is trying to figure out all of these big questions. Her daughter's name is Cherry. Tell us about her.
WEINER: So Cherry wants to be a star. Cherry is a teenager when we meet her. She's just on the verge of adulthood but not quite done baking yet. She wants to be famous. She wants to be a musician, and she's inherited a lot of Aunt Cassie's talent. She sings beautifully. She plays the guitar. She writes music. And of course, Zoe wants her as far from the industry as possible because the industry has chewed Zoe up and spat her out and left her a housewife in Haddonfield. And in many ways, Zoe is happy, but she wants to keep Cherry away from this. But she doesn't want to tell Cherry why. She doesn't want to tell Cherry what happened to her because I think that it's a really vulnerable thing to have to tell a kid that you failed at something. And also, you know, Zoe was the victim of a sexual assault, which she didn't call a sexual assault...
SUMMERS: Right.
WEINER: ...Twenty years ago because you didn't call those things...
SUMMERS: We didn't have the vocabulary then.
WEINER: Did not have the vocabulary - so she just has sort of written this awful violation that happens to her as just, like, a thing that happens in the industry, and this is what it does to young women. So she just wants Cherry as far away from that as she can keep her.
SUMMERS: I mean, one thing that I'm still trying to untangle, and I don't - maybe I don't have the perfect question for this - is you have this experience that Zoe lives through, where she's the victim of an assault, and when she's grown up, she's older, the Griffin Sisters have broken apart. But then juxtaposing that with when she first becomes intimate with Russell and the fact that she talks about pouring alcohol into his drink - that's such an interesting tension of seeing this from (ph) both sides there. But I'm trying to unpack in my head...
WEINER: Yeah.
SUMMERS: ...And I've been trying to since I finished the book. Like, I can't figure out how to untangle it.
WEINER: I wanted that to be kind of an open question because it's really interesting - when does a seduction cross the line into something that is nonconsensual? I think that women can blur those lines, too. And I think that Zoe has just decided all's fair in love and war, right? She wants to secure her place in the band. She knows her talent is not going to do it. Do we like that about her? Do we not like that about her? I mean, I side-eyed her pretty hard when she's pouring that booze into Russell's cup and...
SUMMERS: I think I was literally yelling at my book at one point. It's like, what are you doing, girl?
WEINER: What are you doing? Yes, exactly. But in her head - you know, in her head it's justified because, like, why didn't she get any of the talent? Why did Cassie get all of it, right? And I think that if Zoe were older, she would know that. She would understand it. She would think, I got gifts, too. I got things my sister didn't get. But in that moment, she wants it so much, and she's just thinking, I will do whatever it takes. I will cross that line if I have to.
SUMMERS: I mean, I think the beauty in so much of your writing that shines through in this book is the fact that everybody's right in some ways. Everybody's also very wrong in some ways. What is it that draws you to continue to construct these complicated women and complicated women with relationships with other women?
WEINER: Yeah. Well, I want to write the world I know. And I think with sisters, with friendships, certainly with mothers and daughters, there's a lot of nuance there 'cause I think that most of us in our lives, you know, we're a mix. We try to do the right thing, and sometimes we do the wrong thing. And sometimes we justify doing the wrong thing, like, real hard. And sometimes time gives you that perspective. Sometimes another person can give you that perspective. But, you know, I want my books to feel real. I want my characters to feel real.
SUMMERS: That was author Jennifer Weiner. Her latest novel, "The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits," is out now.
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