Everyone who writes, darlings, seems to want to write their own version of "The Group," and that is exactly what Meg Wolitzer has done with "The Interestings." I love character studies of people set in New York City--of course I would!!!!!!!--and, as I began this novel with a note of anticipation, I hoped this would follow in the footsteps of Claire Messud's brilliant novel of 2006, "The Emperor's Children."
It does not, but that does not mean that, on its own, the book is not worthwhile. Like Mary McCarthy, Wolitzer follows the lives of a group of adolescents--Jules, Goodman, Ash, Ethan, Cathy, Jonah, (plus Dennis, an addition, along the way)--who meet at one of those Summer Arts Camps which I should have gone to, darlings! Only, as the book reveals, does it really matter that they did? Just like did it matter that "The Group" went to Vassar???????????
Jonah, the only gay character, is also the most interesting. The son of a Joan Baez type folk singer, he is abused in an atypical way, which has traumatic effects on him--and I am not altogether sure the abuse was not entirely non-sexual. Like "The Group," all are reunited by the tragic death, in middle age, of one of their members. But, unlike "The Group," Wolitzer, while she gets down cultural and literary references perfectly, does not use them in insightful ways, the way McCarthy did; even her discussions of domesticity and cooking had a kind of social sting and intellectual bite, which Wolitzer's work lacks. The most meaningful passage for me, came at the end, when Ash, a theatrical director, says to the mother of a youngster contemplating going to grad school for such--"The world will whittle your daughter down.. A mother should not." Or words to that effect. If only the book had teemed with more of this kind of insight.
"The Interestings" is........interesting. It just lacks that something extra which would make it, for me, a "keeper!"
But you gotta love that rainbow cover, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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