Jennifer Weiner Drops a Chart-Topper With ‘The Griffin Sisters’ Best Hits’ (Unique)

Jennifer Weiner arrives on the New York restaurant Serafina in temper. It’s mid-February, snow nonetheless lining the streets after a latest bathe — maybe not a great time to journey to town, however the writer, on the town from Philadelphia for a guide occasion, is a frequent customer.

“I attempt to come each month or two simply to see my daughter,” Weiner tells PEOPLE. “She’s had a number of Broadway jobs and some off-Broadway jobs. I will go see no matter present she’s engaged on and we’ll go see reveals collectively.”

Most lately, the mom of two took her youngest to one of the sought-after musicals within the metropolis, The Outsiders. Weiner additionally noticed Demise Turns into Her (“campy and really cute”) and had plans to attend the Audra McDonald-led revival of Gypsy.

One standout manufacturing for the writer, nonetheless, was Stereophonic, the Tony-winning play centered on the trials of a 70s rock band — and which has some widespread themes together with her latest guide.

“It was wonderful,” Weiner says of the present. “But additionally, you are watching folks mainly be the very worst variations of themselves. [It] makes for a very good play however if you’re desirous about actual folks, it is identical to, ‘Oh my God, I hope it isn’t like this.’”

Weiner, the writer of over 20 books, together with bestsellers like The Breakaway and Mrs. Every little thing, focuses her skills on fictional characters. However her newest novel, The Griffin Sisters’ Best Hits, out April 8 from William Morrow, can be rooted in music, romance and woe.

The guide follows Philadelphia sisters Zoe and Cassie Grossberg, who’re thrown into the general public eye when their pop group, The Griffin Sisters, makes it large. Regardless of having two drastically completely different views on fame, the siblings catapult to early 2000’s superstar, till a tragedy breaks up the band. Zoe marries and turns into a mom in suburban New Jersey, whereas Cassie retreats to an off-the-grid cabin in Alaska. Many years later, when Zoe’s daughter, Cherry, needs to change into a singer, she plots to get the Griffin Sisters again collectively.

Weiner’s tackle the band novel was partially influenced by real-life musicians, the writer says: The strife between members of Fleetwood Mac, which fueled their iconic songs. The unrequited love Cass Elliot felt for her Mamas & Papas bandmate Denny Doherty. The sister teams that dominated rock and pop, like Coronary heart and Wilson Phillips, the latter of which Weiner says resembles her protagonists most.

“I did have a number of enjoyable with [writing] Russell,” Weiner admits of the Griffin Sisters’ fictional guitarist. “Leather-based pants and being a rock god; that was enjoyable.”

Nevertheless it wasn’t till Weiner seemed into how the music trade negatively affected girls artists, and mirrored on her personal position within the machine, that the actual coronary heart of the novel fashioned.

“I take heed to a number of girls’s music from the early aughts, like Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera; all of these girls who acquired handled so horribly by the tradition,” Weiner says. “I actually had to return and suppose onerous about my very own complicity as a client of superstar gossip … I used to be one of many those that was making these tales worthwhile and potential.”

Weiner doesn’t shrink back from spotlighting the less-glamorous aspect of stardom, just like the rejection and the lengthy weeks on the highway (her sister-in-law, who used to work at Sara Bareilles’ report label, helped fill in a few of these particulars). The Griffin Sisters additionally examines the unrealistic magnificence requirements leveled towards girls in leisure. Whether or not it’s the undesirable consideration Zoe faces from males, or the scrutiny Cassie is positioned beneath due to her physique measurement, Weiner nonetheless sees these points enjoying out at the moment, particularly as a mom.

“I’ve gotten to look at the dynamic of two younger girls rising up collectively,” Weiner says. “And with fame, [people are] at all times placing girls in packing containers … It is very onerous to inform younger girls you must love your self and you’ve got to be ok with your self, when it looks as if each message that they are getting on this planet is telling them one thing completely different.”

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Writing The Griffin Sisters alsi allowed Weiner, now a literary superstar herself, to replicate on her personal concepts of fame.

“I had a really idealized view,” Weiner says. “I [imagined] it have to be fantastic to be on a pink carpet and have designers ship you garments and have folks name your title. However you don’t have any privateness … Each single piece of your life is obtainable for public consumption.”

An newbie piano participant, who jokes that the extent of her vocal expertise comes from “drunk karaoke,” Weiner is aware of that writing was at all times her reward, whether or not in her further profession as a journalist or because the novelist who first got here onto the scene together with her 2001 debut Good in Mattress.

“One of many issues I really like about writing fiction is it helps you to reside all the different lives that you just by no means acquired to reside,” she says.

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And whereas the guide led Weiner to reside out the American Idol “model of my life,” it additionally continues her push for advanced female-centered narratives. The writer has spoken overtly in regards to the want for extra girls’s tales, and at this level in her profession, she dedicates her time to uplifting new authors. Weiner works with the literary non-profit Blue Stoop to spearhead the Jennifer Weiner Fellowship, which affords yearly monetary help to 6 girls writers. Each month, Weiner meets with the fellows to debate their work and provides perception into the publishing trade, identical to others did for her.

“I used to be actually fortunate,” Weiner says. “I had a number of girls assist me once I was beginning out, whether or not that was blurbing my guide or speaking to me about what you do on a guide tour. I would love it if issues had been simpler for girls attempting to interrupt by way of.”

It’s a well-known message of sisterhood that sings in her newest novel — a by way of line, maybe, that can proceed to seem in Weiner’s books to return.

“I have never run out of concepts,” she says. “I believe the world is so fascinating, particularly for girls. It is so difficult and stuffed with prospects. I do not suppose I am ever going to expire of tales to inform.”

The Griffin Sisters’ Best Hits is now out there, wherever books are bought.