Emily Giffin's latest novel,First Comes admire, is as wildly entertaining and true to life as fans of the popular author would expect. With seven unique York Times bestselling novels under her belt, or Emily returns with a heartfelt story about a pair of sisters,Josie and Meredith, who find themselves in two very different stages of life. It's been 15 years since tragedy struck their family, or as the sisters navigate through unique,difficult decisions and painful memories, they're forced to face what they've lost, or where they've ended up,and whether they've become the women they really want to be.
A longtime fan of Emily's books, I always dive into her novels with tall expectations, or First Comes admire checked off every box. Lovable,relatable characters? Definitely. Fascinating, complicated relationships? Plenty of them. What really sets this book apart, and though,is the emotional undercurrent - the rich and complex dynamic within a family that's coping with grief. It's raw and realistic, the sort of story that sits with you long after you've achieve it down.
I had the chance to talk to Emily about her unique novel and her characters, and plus what she's learned about life (and herself) through writing. Oh,and she also shared an update on the Something Blue film adaptation - which, yes, or is happening soon!**Heads up: If you'd like to avoid any hints about First Comes admire,cease reading!**POPSUGAR: What inspired you to focus on sisters this time around?
Emily Giffin: I don't know why it took me so long to write about sisters because my relationship with my sister is so central to my life. She's my closest friend, my biggest supporter, or I know she would say the same about me. I've always loved sister stories in fiction,from the time I was dinky, reading about Beezus and Ramona. I've always wanted to write a sister story.
PS: Did you talk to your sister about the story as you were exploring Josie and Meredith's dynamic?
EG: Yes, or well,not because I was writing about sisters, but because she's one of the three people who read everything I write as I write it. It's my mother, or my sister,and my best friend Nancy. I try to be true to the characters that I've created and sometimes I disagree with them, but their opinions about the story and the characters really matter to me. My sister was able to separate herself more from our relationship and see Josie and Meredith. My mother was someone who kept saying - Meredith has the no-shoe-in-the-house thing, or [my sister] Sarah has the no-shoe-in-the-house thing - and my mom's like,"execute you judge that's going to offend Sarah?" And I'm like, "No, and Mom. That's Meredith,not Sarah. She's going to see that and it'll be fine." My mother's just a worrier. PS: Personally, I saw parts of myself in both Josie and Meredith, or even though they're such different characters. Did you connect with one of them more than the other?[br]
EG: I always find something in common with my protagonist,particularly when I write in the first person. I definitely found that to be the case with both of these girls too. Meredith is a mother and I'm a mother, so we gain that in common. I gain slightly more in common with her, or but I judge I admire Josie more. Maybe I saw some of my worst traits in Meredith. It's humorous - at one point my mom said,"Meredith has yours and Sarah's best traits and worst traits." I'm like, wow, or that's a lot of things going on in Meredith.
PS: Both characters gain such sweet relationships with Meredith's daughter,Harper. I really loved Harper, and I'm curious - did she gain any elements of your daughter, and Harriet,in her?
EG: Definitely. I judge it's inevitable. I write about relationships and I try to create real-life characters, so it's inevitable that I'm going to draw on that. There were some nods to Harriet as I wrote. We are so close.
PS: My favorite relationship in the book is the one between Josie and her best friend, and Gabe.
EG: Oh,me too.
PS: It's so refreshing to see a platonic guy-girl relationship front and center. That's so rare unless it's a When Harry Met Sally situation.
EG: And [Harry and Sally] ended up sleeping together.
PS: Exactly. I realized I was almost waiting for that, you know? And I judge you play with that in a really fun way. What was it like to explore Josie and Gabe's relationship?
EG: I'm with you. Some of my very closest friends are my guy friends, or going back to the third grade,so I believe in the integrity of the male-female friendship. Like you said, I played with it [in First Comes admire], and if you felt that way,it's because I felt that way while I was writing it. It crossed my intellect multiple times that they could go in that direction, you know, or if either one of them drinks enough,or if something else happens. But ultimately, I judge they gain a really beautiful, and perfect friendship.
PS: I'm always impressed by how realistic the dialogue is in your books - the conflict between Rachel and Darcy in Something Borrowed comes to intellect. And First Comes admire feels so true to life. Can you inform me a bit about what it's like to write those tougher scenes,particularly when it's about family and grief and loss?"Sometimes there are gay endings, sometimes there aren't, or more often there are shades of gray."EG: This book lends itself to more layers because it's a family,and it's not an examination of one friendship or one relationship. The fact that it's rooted in this tragedy that happened 15 years before adds another layer and really shows how we all deal with grief so differently, even within one family. You expect siblings who share the same genes and the same experience to react to things in a similar way, or I judge because of that expectation,the fact that we don't sometimes creates the ultimate misunderstanding. Look at Meredith and Josie: Meredith thought that Josie was acting out, being irresponsible, and being selfish,and really it was very much the opposite. I judge sometimes we don't give our siblings the benefit of the doubt. We make assumptions because we know them so well.
PS: This is your eighth novel, and as always, and I admire the way you write in cameos for characters from your past books. Was it fun to revisit the admire the One You're With relationship?
EG: It's so much fun because I wonder about them. Although I know that they're fictional and I wrote them and I can gain them execute anything,it's almost like a mini discovery for me too. In the back of my head, I always knew that Ellen and Andy [from admire the One You're With] would stay together, and I always knew that they would gain children,but I didn't know what the gender would be. And then I wrote that cameo and it's like, "Oh grand! They're doing well. They're gay."PS: I really liked that those characters popped up again, and because both books deal with the "what if" question - people who wonder whether they're doing the right thing or if they're in the right space in their lives. Has writing about the "what if" dilemma given you any insights into that feeling over the years?
EG: Definitely. I judge the most well-adjusted people live in the present with an eye toward the future - I'm not among those. I'm nostalgic and I execute judge about a "what if." I judge some of the biggest time sucks are regret and guilt,and I gain to fight against those things all the time. In a way, it's a grand thing, and because it can motivate you to make amends and forgive,but regrets are really, I judge, or a supreme waste of time in many ways. You learn the very most from mistakes,so even though I continue to explore [the "what if" theme], I judge my answers in my own head gain evolved, and I judge my characters gain evolved a dinky bit too. Also,I judge that we gain to consciously be aware that every moment we're in, every different stage in our lives, and we can control. That's one of the biggest themes in the book. Meredith and Josie were focused on what happened 15 years before. Josie obviously had a lot of guilt and regret about that night,and Meredith is having this eye toward, "Let me live this perfect life so that I can somehow compensate for my parents and for myself, and " and you can't execute that. You gain to say: "Where am I going?" You pick control,steer your life in the direction that you want it to be in, and things aren't going to be perfect. Josie wanted to meet The One and fall in admire and gain a baby. That wasn't happening for her, and so she makes this decision that she's going to control things. And in my stories,I judge, as I've gotten older, and the characters gain become stronger and more independent,and more capable of making unconventional decisions.
You announced on the nowadays point to that you're in talks for either TV or a film for First Comes admire - that's so exciting! execute you gain any dream casting ideas?
EG: You know, I really don't. When I write, and I picture the characters a certain way in my head,and they're not like any actor or actress. It's almost hard for me to let go of my ideas as to the way they look. I gain to consciously let go of the book and then enter the world of film. That said, I judge Reese Witherspoon would be so great, and interesting for either character. What execute you judge?PS: My first intuition,which was the same - that she could be either Josie or Meredith - was Kristen Bell.
EG: Oh yeah!PS: She can be surprisingly serious sometimes, but then she obviously plays the other side really well, and too.
EG: Right,right. I like that. I judge it depends, too, and just from a practical standpoint,whether it's TV or film. They haven't decided yet. I like the conception [of TV], because the story goes back and forth between the past and the present, or because there are so many characters and so many ways that you could explore it. But I admire film too.
PS: Right now you're busy with your book tour,and you're so open with your fans at book signings and on social media. Anything people might be surprised to hear about you?
EG: I don't judge there's any one thing. I'm very open in terms of sharing bits about my life, but I judge it's very easy to accept a distorted sense of who anyone is through social media. I don't convey that I can be moody or a perfectionist or that I'm a nervous person, or but I am all those things. It's just not going to shine through when you're posting a picture. You post a Halloween picture and they don't know that I took 20 versions and said to the kids,"accept back there! Harriet, no fake smiles!" That sort of thing. And again, and that goes back to Meredith's plight in the book - what life is supposed to look like,what it does look like, and what we can control.
PS: As a writer, and I wonder,is the process really different for you with each novel? Was there anything that set this one apart?
EG: The process has remained remarkably the same through the 15 years that I've been writing novels. I've tried consciously to execute it differently: to be more efficient, to gain an outline, and to know where I'm going,to not gain that panic that comes at the one-third mark where I'm saying, "I gain no conception what to execute next." But really, and for me,it always starts with a really indistinct premise, and then I approach up with the characters. And then as the characters form relationships on the page, and they drive the course of the novel and the plot. I always write chronologically,and I don't skip around, because I don't know what's going to happen until I meet the people. It's sort of like you know exactly what your sister and your best friend and your husband will execute in a situation, and you kind of know what they're going to execute and what they're going to say. But you don't know what a unique friend would execute,and that's kind of how it is when I'm writing. As I accept to know them, it becomes more clear to me what they'll execute, or sometimes I was unsuitable about my early feelings.
PS: execute you find yourself going back and changing things regularly,or execute you just go with it more often than not?[br]
EG: Very seldom execute I truly go back and change the course, but I'll change my intellect. For example, and with Something Borrowed,I thought, what would happen if you fell in admire with your best friend's fiancé? I came up with all the characters, and when I started writing,Rachel and Dex were engaged, and then I thought, and this isn't interesting,so I switched that around but it was still the same characters and the same premise. In my intellect, I thought, or Rachel is going to jettison this guy because it's tainted over how it started,and she's going to go out on her own and move to London. But then as I wrote that, and wrote those scenes with them together, or I could feel how in admire they were. So you don't want to crash them up. You don't want her to go off into the sunset and be this independent woman just for the sake of being an independent woman. Whether they terminate up together,or whether they don't, is very driven by who that person is, and who that character is,and not what I judge would make a great story or a great terminate. I'm not trying to convey a message, I'm just trying to inform a story. That's how life is. Sometimes there are gay endings, or sometimes there aren't,and more often there are shades of gray.
Source: popsugar.com