Meg Wolitzer

To be admired by someone we admire—we all yearn for this: the private, electrifying pleasure of being singled out by someone of esteem. But sometimes it can also mean entry to a new kind of life, a bigger world. Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women’s movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer—madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can’t quite place—feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she’d always imagined. Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the flame we all believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time. It’s a story about the people who guide and the people who follow (and how those roles evolve over time), and the desire within all of us to be pulled into the light.

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 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.

"The moment I decided to leave him, the moment I thought, enough, we were thirty-five thousand feet above the ocean, hurtling forward but giving the illusion of stillness and tranquility. Just like our marriage." So opens Meg Wolitzer's compelling and provocative novel The Wife, as Joan Castleman sits beside her husband on their flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph Castleman, is "one of those men who own the world...who has no idea how to take care of himself or anyone else, and who derives much of his style from the Dylan Thomas Handbook of Personal Hygiene and Etiquette." He is also one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award to honor his accomplishments, and Joan, who has spent forty years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop. From this gripping opening, Wolitzer flashes back fifty years to 1950s Smith College and Greenwich Village -- the beginning of the Castleman relationship -- and follows the course of the famous marriage that has brought them to this breaking point, culminating in a shocking ending that outs a carefully kept secret. Wolitzer's most important and ambitious book to date, The Wife is a wise, sharp-eyed, compulsively readable story about a woman forced to confront the sacrifices she's made in order to achieve the life she thought she wanted. But it's also an unusually candid look at the choices all men and women make for themselves, in marriage, work, and life. With her skillful storytelling and pitch-perfect observations, Wolitzer invites intriguing questions about the nature of partnership and the precarious position of an ambitious woman in a man's world.

If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.

Ten years after leaving high-power jobs to raise their children, four New York friends enter their forties while struggling with the differences between their past ideals and their present realities, a situation that become turbulent when one of them meets a successful working mother of three who seems to have it all. 40,000 first printing.

From the New York Times -bestselling author of The Ten-Year Nap, a funny, provocative, revealing novel about female desire.When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses for the school play Lysistrata -the comedy by Aristophanes in which women stop having sex with men in order to end a war-a strange spell seems to be cast over the school. Or, at least, over the women. One by one throughout the high school community, perfectly healthy, normal women and teenage girls turn away from their husbands and boyfriends in the bedroom, for reasons they don't really understand. As the women worry over their loss of passion, and the men become by turns unhappy, offended, and above all, confused, both sides are forced to look at their shared history, and at their sexual selves in a new light.As she did to such acclaim with the New York Times bestseller The Ten-Year Nap, Wolitzer tackles an issue that has deep ramifications for women's lives, in a way that makes it funny, riveting, and totally fresh-allowing us to see our own lives through her insightful lens.Read an essay about writing The Uncoupling from the author, Meg Wolitzer.

From the bestselling author of The Wife —Meg Wolitzer’s “hilariously moving, sharply written novel” ( USA TODAY ), hailed by critics and loved by readers worldwide, with its “dead-on observations about sex, marriage, and the family ties that strangle and bind” ( Cleveland Plain Dealer ).Crackling with intelligence and humor, The Position is the masterful story of one extraordinary family at the hilarious height of the sexual revolution—and through the thirty-year hangover that followed.In 1975, Paul and Roz Mellow write a bestselling Joy of Sex -type book that mortifies their four school-aged children and ultimately changes the shape of the family forever. Thirty years later, as the now dispersed family members argue over whether to reissue the book, we follow the complicated lives of each of the grown children and their conflicts in love, work, marriage, parenting, and, of course, sex—all shadowed by the indelible specter of their highly sexualized parents. Insightful, panoramic, and compulsively readable, The Position is an American original.

The debut novel from New York Times–bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, a story of three college students’ shared fascination with poetry and death, and how one of them must face difficult truths in order to leave her obsession behind. Published when she was only twenty-three and written while she was a student at Brown, Sleepwalking marks the beginning of Meg Wolitzer’s acclaimed career. Filled with her usual wisdom, compassion and insight, Sleepwalking tells the story of the three notorious “death girls,” so called on the Swarthmore campus because they dress in black and are each absorbed in the work and suicide of a different poet: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Wolitzer’s creation Lucy Asher, a gifted writer who drowned herself at twenty-four. At night the death girls gather in a candlelit room to read their heroines’ work aloud. But an affair with Julian, an upperclassman, pushes sensitive , struggling Claire Danziger—she of the Lucy Asher obsession-–to consider to what degree her “death girl” identity is really who she is. As she grapples with her feelings for Julian, her own understanding of herself and her past begins to shift uncomfortably and even disturbingly. Finally, Claire takes drastic measures to confront the facts about herself that she has been avoiding for years.

Best-selling author Meg Wolitzer guest edits the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction. “If you know exactly what you are going to get from the experience of reading a story, you probably wouldn’t go looking for it; you need, in order to be an open reader of fiction, to be willing. To cast a vote for what you love and then wait for the outcome,” writes Meg Wolitzer in her introduction. The Best American Short Stories 2017 casts a vote for and celebrates all that is our country. Here you’ll find a man with a boyfriend and a girlfriend, naval officers trapped on a submarine, a contestant on America’s Funniest Home Videos, and a gay man desperate to be a father—unforgettable characters waiting for an outcome, burning with stories to tell.Maidencane / Chad B. Anderson --Are we not men? / T.C. Boyle --God's work / Kevin Canty --A small sacrifice for an enormous happiness / Jai Chakrabarti --Arcadia / Emma Cline --Hog for sorrow / Leopoldine Core --Campoamor / Patricia Engel --Richard of York gave battle in vain / Danielle Evans --Ugly / Mary Gordon --The midnight zone / Lauren Groff --The Chicane / Amy Hempel --Tally / Noy Holland --Gabe Dove / Sonya Larson --Let's go to the videotape / Fiona Maazel --Ancient Rome / Kyle McCarthy --Last day on earth / Eric Puchner --Novostroïka / Maria Reva --Telemachus / Jim Shepherd --Gender Studies / Curtis Sittenfeld --Famous actor / Jess Walter

At first glance, Duncan Dorfman, April Blunt, and Nate Saviano don't seem to have much in common. Duncan is trying to look after his single mom and adjust to life in a new town while managing his newfound Scrabble superpower - he can feel words and pictures beneath his fingers and tell what they are without looking. April is pining for a mystery boy she met years ago and striving to be seen as more than a nerd in her family of jocks. And homeschooled Nate is struggling to meet his father's high expectations for success.When these three unique kids are brought together at the national Youth Scrabble Tournament, each with a very different drive to win, their paths cross and stories intertwine . . . and the journey is made extraordinary with a perfect touch of magic. Readers will fly through the pages, anxious to discover who will take home the grand prize, but there's much more at stake than winning and losing.With shrewd observations, wry humor, and a touch of whimsy, bestselling author Meg Wolitzer's classic storytelling will delight readers of all ages.

The early novel that established Meg Wolitzer’s career, later made into Nora Ephron’s first film as a director.The third book by New York Times-bestselling author Meg Wolitzer (originally published as This Is Your Life), a smart, witty and perceptive novel about the daughters of a female stand-up comic who watch as their mother struggles to balance her career with the needs of her children.Dottie Engels, comedienne extraordinaire, performs her act in Vegas and on late-night TV. Her two daughters, Opal and Erica, live on the periphery of her glittering life, seeing her on the television screen more often than they do at home. But when Dottie’s ratings begin to slide, it takes both her daughters to save Dottie from herself.Displaying Wolitzer’s signature style that combines keen observations, compassion for her characters, sharp humor, and a strong social hook, This Is My Life expertly captures the uncertainties of adolescence and the trials of growing up in the shadow of a mother who is caught between the conflicting pulls of fame and family.

From the New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, a “devastatingly on target” ( Elle ) novel about a young woman's accidental death and its effect on her family and friends.For years, Sara Swerdlow was transported by an unfettered sense of immortality. Floating along on loving friendships and the adoration of her mother, Natalie, Sara's notion of death was entirely alien to her existence. But when a summer night's drive out for ice cream ends in tragedy, thirty-year-old Sara—"held aloft and shimmering for years"—finally lands.Mining the intricate relationship between love and mourning, acclaimed novelist Meg Wolitzer explores a single, overriding question: who, finally, "owns" the excruciating loss of this young woman—her mother or her closest friends? Depicting the aftermath of Sara's shocking death with piercing humor and shattering realism, Surrender, Dorothy is the luminously thoughtful, deeply moving exploration of what it is to be a mother and a friend, and, above all, what it takes to heal from unthinkable loss.

From the author of This Is Your Life--made into a successful film--comes a funny, human comedy about the lives and loves of three best friends. Originally united by a fifth grade project, now, 20 years later, the "girls" still meet for dinner once a month. Nora Ephron will direct a film version of Friends for Life.

Max discovers that uniqueness is more than just a name, in this funny, lively picture book debut by the bestselling author of The Interestings.Max's room has his name all over it--on his blanket and night light and wall. His parents call him The One and Only Max. And so, he is in for a big surprise at the playground one day, when he hears "Max, time to go home!" and two other kids come running. He's not the one and only after all! How many Maxes are in the world?! Millions of Maxes?But when he decides to help one of the other Maxes find her missing toy, he discovers that there are other ways to be special, and that he can appreciate the specialness of his new Max friends just as much as his own. That night he dreams of the future adventures he'll have with all of the Maxes he has yet to meet.

When her marriage ends, Laura Giovanni, an artist who draws the hidden pictures page for a children's magazine, falls in love with a woman, a situation that complicates her relations with her ex-husband, David, and her young son, Sam

When eleven-year-old Claudia, living alone with her mother, meets tough Danger Roth, the two girls start sharing strange dreams in which Claudia's missing father sends her cryptic messages

A one-of-a-kind guide to help writers translate their literary talents to the big screen. This is a book for all writers, be they published or unpublished, novelists or journalists, who want to write for the movies. Meg Wolitzer, who has transformed herself from novelist to novelist/screenwriter, shows writers how they, too, can use their grasp of story, language, and character to write great screenplays. Wolitzer discusses those aspects of screenwriting that can stymie even the most seasoned of writers. Her topics include: * getting started * the essential three-act structure * how writers can use what they already know about writing * why write a treatment and how to do it * how to write visually instead of verbally * creating for the market Wolitzer also advises on shedding obstructive writing habits and adapting one's own work and the work of others for the big screen. Level-headed, encouraging, and always delightful, Fitzgerald Did It is a must for every writer's bookshelf. "If you try to write a screenplay, as I do, and you don't know what you're doing, as I don't, you have to read this book, as I have. Repeatedly." --Cathleen Schine, author of The Love Letter and The Evolution of Jane

When Becca's older brother Stevie is selected for the draft during the Vietnamese War, he decides to go to Canada instead, leaving his family upset and divided by his refusal to go to war.

Sixth graders Julie, Alison, Trina, Susan, and Stacy are determined to help their fifth grade teacher Mr. Graham find a new wife, but their matchmaking efforts may be doomed to failure. Original.

When Trina, Susan, Julie, Stacey, and Alison learn that their teacher's wife has died, they want to do more than write sympathy cards, but their well-intentioned efforts could cause havoc.

When Mr. Graham, their fifth-grade teacher, invites them to work on a summer project with him, Alison, Susan, Julie, and Trina discover that Mr. Graham is making plans for his future happiness. Original.

Der Handel einer Ehe. Als Joan Castleman beschließt, ihren Mann zu verlassen, befinden sie sich gerade 10.000 Meter über dem Meer auf dem Flug nach Helsinki. Joans Mann Joseph ist ein berühmter amerikanischer Schriftsteller, dem ein angesehener Literaturpreis verliehen werden soll. Joan selbst hat 40 Jahre lang ihr eigenes schriftstellerisches Talent für die Karriere ihres Mannes verleugnet. Damit soll jetzt Schluss sein. Mit genauer Beobachtungsgabe folgt Meg Wolitzer der Ehe der von der jungen Studentin, die sich in ihren Professor verliebt, zum umschwärmten Paar der literarischen Zirkel im New York der 80er Jahre. Bis hin zu dem Punkt, als Joan der Lüge um den umjubelten Schriftsteller ein Ende bereitet... Gelesen von Hörbuch- und Shakespeare-Company-Darstellerin Gabriele Blum.

For a group of four New York friends, the past 10 years have been defined by marriage and motherhood.Educated to believe that they and their generation would conquer the world, they nonetheless left high-powered jobs to stay at home with their babies. What was intended as a temporary time-out has turned into a decade.Now at 40, with their kids growing up, Amy, Jill, Roberta and Karen wake up to a life and a future that is not what they intended. Illicit affairs, money problems, issues with children and husbands all rear their heads, and the friends wonder if it's time for a change....

Zwei feministische Meisterstücke von der preisgekrönten amerikanischen Autorin Meg WolitzerDie EhefrauJoan Castleman hat für ihre Ehe alles geopfert – sogar ihr Talent. Sie ist die Frau des berühmten Schriftstellers Joe Castleman, dem nun der renommierte Helsinki-Preis verliehen werden soll. Für Joan ist das der Anlass, ihre Ehe zu rekapitulieren. In Erinnerungen kehrt sie zurück zum Anfang der Beziehung ins Amerika der Fünfzigerjahre – und weiter in die literarischen Zirkel der Achtziger. Seit vierzig Jahren steht sie in seinem Schatten. Bis sie eines Tages beschließt, dass sich alles ändern muss.Meg Wolitzer untersucht die Mechanismen einer zerrütteten Ehe mit hintergründigem Witz und einem meisterhaften Gespür für die Abgründe, die in ganz alltäglichen zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen liegen.›Die Ehefrau‹ wurde mit Glenn Close in der Hauptrolle unter dem Titel ›Die Frau des Nobelpreisträgers – The Wife‹ verfilmt.Das weibliche PrinzipDie junge Studentin Greer Kadetsky – intelligent, talentiert, aber hoffnungslos schüchtern – wäre gerne mutig, schlagfertig, selbstbewusst. Als sie auf die Frauenrechtlerin Faith Frank trifft, ahnt sie nicht, dass diese Begegnung den Eintritt in eine neue Welt markiert und zugleich ihr Leben, ihre Beziehungen und Überzeugungen auf eine harte Probe stellen wird.Mal mit funkelndem Witz, mal tief berührend und stets mit großer Empathie erzählt Meg Wolitzer von Macht in all ihren Facetten, von Feminismus, Liebe und Loyalität und beweist sich als hellwache Beobachterin unserer Zeit.

Zwei eindrucksvolle Gesellschaftsromane der preisgekrönten amerikanischen Autorin Meg Wolitzer – pointiert, lebensnah und mit feinem Gespür für weibliche LebenswegeDie InteressantenNach dem Tod ihres Vaters will Julie Jacobsen nur noch raus aus der Tristesse ihres provinziellen Zuhauses. Das Sommercamp an der Ostküste bedeutet für sie den Eintritt in eine neue Welt, die Welt der Kunst, Kreativität und Freiheit, verkörpert durch die interessantesten Menschen, denen sie je begegnet Ethan, Jonah, Cathy, Ash und Goodman, fünf junge New Yorker, die sie wegen ihrer Schlagfertigkeit und ihres schwarzen Humors in ihre privilegierte Clique aufnehmen. Die Jahre und Jahrzehnte vergehen, aber nicht jeder der »Interessanten«, wie sie sich selbst nennen, kann aus seiner Begabung das machen, was er sich als Jugendlicher erträumte …Meg Wolitzer zeigt an ihren Protagonisten die ganze Tragik und die ganze Komik der Existenz. Ein großer Roman über das Wesen der Kunst und der Freundschaft vor dem Panorama des Amerika der letzten vierzig Jahre.Die ZehnjahrespauseIn schöner Regelmäßigkeit kommen Amy, Roberta, Jill und Karen im »Golden Horn«, ihrem Stammlokal und Zufluchtsort im hektischen New Yorker Alltag, zusammen. Alle sind sie Mütter, Anfang vierzig und jede von ihnen kann ein Lied davon singen, wie es ist, wenn sich die Rückkehr in den Beruf als schwieriger erweist als gedacht. Trotz der besten Ausbildung. Und so plagen Amy Geldsorgen, Jills Doktorarbeit liegt auf Eis, und Roberta, die früher mal Künstlerin war, begnügt sich mit Bastelnachmittagen in der Grundschule. Allein Karen geht gelegentlich zu Vorstellungsgesprächen, allerdings vor allem, um im Training zu bleiben. Doch während ihre Kinder mit jedem Tag selbstständiger werden, müssen die vier neue Perspektiven finden. Zum Glück haben sie einander. Und das »Golden Horn«.Meg Wolitzer widmet sich in diesem Roman der Frau in ihrer Rolle als Mutter – und vier Menschen, aus deren Leben nicht das geworden ist, was sie sich erhofft hatten. Gewohnt pointiert und unterhaltsam erzählt sie in ›Die Zehnjahrespause‹ von häuslichem Glück, Unglück und allem, was dazwischen liegt.

A delightfully harmonious mother-son collaboration from bestselling author Meg Wolitzer and audio-producer Charlie Panek about a sound-inspired scavenger hunt.Felix used to love summer vacations, when his family would trade the bustling noise of New York City for the small-town quiet of Blissfield, Massachusetts. But summer hasn't been the same for Felix since his bad-boy big brother, Dylan, left home and his genius younger brother, Miles, started attending a camp for child prodigies.After Felix discovers a mysterious musical clue, he joins forces with Marigold, the eccentric girl who lives next door, to follow a string of clues on a sound-related scavenger hunt through town. From experimental musicians to frequencies that turn into pictures, the pair learn that sound is so much more than what we can hear. But as the hunt builds to a crescendo, Felix begins to wonder—and worry—about the secret identity of the anonymous puzzle-maker behind the adventure.