Jennifer Weiner loses a chart topper with ‘The Griffinsists’ biggest hits’ (exclusive)

Jennifer Weiner Arrive at New York restaurant Seraphina in a good mood. It is mid-February, snow that is still lining on the streets after a new shower-can not an ideal time to travel to the city, but the author, in town from Philadelphia for a book event, is an often visitors.

“I try to come every month or two just to see my daughter,” Weiner tells People. “She has had some Broadway jobs and some jobs outside Broadway. I’ll see which show she is working on and we’ll see the show together.”

Most recently the mother took two of her youngest to one of the most sought after musicals in the city, Outsider. Weiner also saw Death becomes her (“Campy and very sweet”) and had plans to participate in the Audra McDonald-led resuscitation of Gypsy.

A prominent production for the author was however StereophonicThe Tony-winning game centered on the trials with a 70’s rock band-and that have some common themes with her latest book.

“It was fantastic,” Weiner says about the show. “But also, you look at that people are basically the very worst versions of themselves. (It) creates a really good game, but when you think of real people it is just like,” Oh my God, I hope it is not this. ”

Weiner, the author of over 20 books, including bestsellers as The interruption and Wife everythingfocuses their talents on fictional characters. But her recent novel, Griffin’s sisters’ largest hitsApril 8 from William Morrow, is also anchored in music, romance and ve.

The book follows the Philadelphia sisters Zoe and Cassie Grossberg, who are thrown into the public eye when their pop group, Griffin sisters, makes it great. Although they have two drastically different views on fame, Katapult’s siblings to the early 2000s celebrity, until a tragedy breaks up the band. Zoe marries and becomes a mother in suburban New Jersey, while Cassie retreats to a cabin outside the web in Alaska. Decades later, when Zoe’s daughter, Cherry, wants to become a singer, she plotts to get the griffin sisters again.

Weiner’s take on the band novel was partly influenced by real musicians, says the author: the battle between members in Fleetwood Macwhich is run their iconic songs. The unanswered love Cass Elliot Felt for her Mamas & Papas bandmate Denny Doherty. Sister groups that dominated rock and pop, as Heart and Wilson PhillipsThe latter that Weiner says is most similar to their main characters.

“I had a lot of fun with (writing) Russell,” admits Weiner by Griffin’s sisters’ fictional guitarist. “Leather pants and being a stone god; it was fun.”

But it wasn’t until Weiner looked at how the music industry adversely affected female artists and reflected on their own role in the machine, that the real heart of the novel was formed.

“I listen to a lot of female music from the early Augpts, as Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera; All the women who were treated so terribly by culture, says Weiner. “I really had to go back and think hard about my own participation as a consumer of celebrity gossip … I was one of the people who made these stories profitable and possible.”

Weiner does not stay away from lighting up the less glamorous side of the star, like the rejection and the long weeks on the road (her sister -in -law, who used to work on Sara Bareilles‘Record label, helped fill in some of these details). The griffin sisters Also examines the unrealistic beauty standards that are equalized to women in entertainment. Whether it is the unwanted attention that Zoe is facing from men, or the review Cassie is placed under because of her body size, Weiner still sees these issues that play out today, especially as a mother.

“I have had to look at the dynamics of two young women who grow up together,” says Weiner. “And with fame, (people are) to always put women in boxes … It is very difficult to tell young women that you have to love yourself and you have to feel good about yourself, when it seems like every message they get in the world tells them something else.”

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Writing The griffin sisters Alsi allowed Weiner, now a literary celebrity himself, to reflect on his own ideas about fame.

“I had a very idealized view,” says Weiner. “I (imagined) It must be wonderful to be on a red rug and let designers send you clothes and get people to call your name. But you have no privacy … every single part of your life is available for public consumption.”

An amateur piano player who jokes that the extent of her vocal talent comes from “Drunk Karaoke”, Weiner knows that writing always was her gift, whether in her additional career as a journalist or as the novelist who first entered the stage with his debut in 2001 Good in bed.

“One of the things I love about writing fiction is that it lets you live all other lives you never got to live,” she says.

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And while the book led Weiner to live out American idol “Version of my life,” it also continues her driving force for complex women -centered stories. The author has spoken openly About the need for more women’s stories, and at this time in her career, she spends her time lifting new writers. Weiner works with the literary non-profit blue slope to the tip Jennifer Weiner Fellowshipwhich offers annual financial support to six female writers. Every month, Weiner meets with the fellows to discuss their work and provide insight into the publishing industry, just as others did for her.

“I was really lucky,” says Weiner. “I got a lot of women to support me when I started, whether it was blurred my book or talked to me about what you do on a book tour. I would like it if things were easier for women who tried to break through.”

It is a familiar message from the sisterhood that sings in her latest novel – a pervasive line, which may continue to be shown in Weiner’s books to come.

“I haven’t run out of ideas,” she says. “I think the world is so interesting, especially for women. It is so challenging and full of opportunities. I don’t think I will ever end up at stories to tell.”

Griffin’s sisters’ largest hits Is now available, wherever books are sold.