Kilbourn Public Library Book Club

The Kilbourn Public Library Book Club is reading The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer for the May book selection.  This dazzling, panoramic novel is about what becomes of early talent, and the roles that art, money, and even envy can play in close friendships. 


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. 


Think about how talent is presented in the book.  In your opinion, is it something you are born with or something you work hard to achieve? 


Jealousy is referred to in the book as being "I want what you have," whereas envy is "I want what you have, but I also want to take it away so you can't have it."  Who is jealous in this book?  Who is envious?  Can jealousy become envy?  How is envy tied up in issues like talent and money?


Single parents, lost parents, and absent parents play a role in this novel.  In what ways do the families the characters were born into shape their futures?  Ash and Goodman are the only characters to come from an intact nuclear family that is able to provide for all their needs.  Do you think this is necessarily a good thing for Goodman?  What about Ash?


The shift from the seventies to the eighties to the current moment is an important one depicted in the book.  What do you think Meg Wolitzer is trying to say about art and how art is sold?  Was the art of the seventies as pure as it seemed to the creators?  The Wunderlichs remain true to an even earlier version of what art should be.  What are the positives of that vision?   What are its limits?


Let us know what you think of The Interestings.