A Review of The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

The Interestings is a story of friendship between 5 people who met a summer camp in 1977. Spirit-In-The-Woods was an arts camp that drew mostly rich kids interested in pursuing music, drama, dance, animation and the like. Julie Jacobsen, rechristened Jules, gets a scholarship to this camp the summer after her father dies of cancer and meets Ash, her brother Goodman, Ethan, Cathy and Jonah. She somehow becomes friendly with this group of "cool kids" and also just as unlikely, stays friends with most of them for the next 30 years. We learn of the internal private lives of each character, although Jules is the central figure. What is most compelling about this story is the flawed nature of these characters. Jules, especially, is nearly unlikable. She is completely self absorbed, although her absorption seems to revolve around he lives of Ethan and Ash, now married and extremely wealthy and successful. Even later in life when she apologizes for being self absorbed, she is still so focused on her apparent envy of the lives of her best friends, she cannot appreciate what she has for herself. Also central to this story is a side plot involving Goodman and Cathy. Goodman, a complete waste of a human being, is accused of a crime that it seems apparent he did commit. His family, however, including Ash and her parents, believe him to be innocent and go to the wall for him. Jules, still carrying a bit of a torch for Goodman, believes in his innocence and even tries to convince his victim that she misinterpreted his gestures. It is the most difficult to read scene in the book, Jules actually trying to convince the victim that the crime wasn't a crime, completely cringe-worthy, but so real. Jules is accused of being weak, which is, in fact, exactly what she is. There are many sub plots here, but this is truly a realistic view of the loss of innocence, both for the characters and time-wise, as the story takes place at the end of the 20th century. I found one of the most profound lines of the story to be this: "You don't always wind up with your soul mate". Truly, a study in the disappointment of life, but also how these characters disappointed themselves. I would very highly recommend this book.