The Next Best Thing (51 page)

      
6. Swimming serves as an escape for Ruth. Is there an activity that has the same effect for you?

Anything physical, really, where there’s a rhythm to the strokes or the strides or the turns of the wheels. I swim, I bike, I run, I do sprint-distance triathlons (very, very slowly), and I think when I move . . . so even if it looks like I’m slacking by just walking the dog or whatever, the truth is, I’m working. Swear to God!

      
7. The Golden Girls
is Ruth’s favorite television growing up, and it has a formative impact on her. What was your favorite show as a child, and did it affect you in the same way? What do you think television offers, as a storytelling medium, that books and movies do not?

Ha. Okay, here’s the sad-but-true part: I wasn’t allowed to watch TV until I was in college. My parents—a child psychiatrist and a teacher—believed that television was a Bad Influence, and we could only watch half an hour of PBS and the occasional Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. The irony is, of course, I write books and TV shows, and had a book made into a movie, one of my brothers is a film producer, the other is an entertainment lawyer, and my sister is an actress who makes videos for places like Funny or Die. In lieu of TV, we were all forced to be funny around the dinner table, and it’s a skill that I think has served each of us well.

In terms of of what TV has to offer, it’s very stripped down. No interior monologues (unless you do them in voiceover—ugh). No description. Just dialogue and action and no need to describe the room because it’s right there. Lucky for me, I love writing dialogue and hate writing description, and I like a story where things move along briskly, so writing scripts wasn’t that hard a transition.

      
8. Unlike your recent novels, which have been narrated from multiple points of view,
The Next Best Thing
is told from Ruth’s perspective only. What was it like for you to return to single narration? Did it change the way you approached Ruth—or the plot?

With this book, having lived through the failure of
Georgia,
I wanted to go back to basics: a flawed yet lovable girl, a battle she’d either win or lose, a vivid cast of supporting characters, a new world to explore. Where
Then Came You
was very much an issue-of-the-times book, with surrogacy and fertility and how money influences the options women have, and
Fly Away Home
was very topical—cheating politicians! Wives standing by their men! Daughters’s lives thrown into turmoil!—
The Next Best Thing
was a simpler story, like
Good in Bed
or
Best Friends Forever,
with a great, broken, admirable character at its heart. I wanted to go back to my wheelhouse, to give my readers, old and new, another character to love the way they loved Cannie in
Good in Bed
and Addie in
Best Friends Forever
. . . and I hope I did!

      
9. You are a reality television buff, and as many of your fans know, you live-tweet
The Bachelor
and
The Bachelorette
. How do you think reality television has affected pop culture on the whole?

I think the generation behind mine really came of age in the Time of Oprah, where it didn’t really happen unless someone was watching, and where physical imperfection is less acceptable than ever. Hence shows like
The Bachelor,
which are less about finding love than they are about attaining a sinecure on another show—
Good Morning America, Dancing with the Stars,
whatever. It was fun to write a character like Ruth who, because of her insecurities, is terrified of even having her elbow accidentally appearing on screen . . . and who ends up having to face her fears, go on camera, and say, “This is the show that I wanted to do. Here’s how it was supposed to be. Here’s who it was supposed to be for.”

      
10. When her show is first picked up, Little Dave tells Ruth to enjoy it, because, “It’s as good as it’s going to get.” What advice would you give young writers who hope to work in television?

I’d tell them to know that there will be compromises. Because there’s a lot of money at stake, there will, necessarily, be a lot of cooks in the kitchen . . . and, in many ways, it’s an industry driven by fear. Nobody wants a show to go down, nobody wants to lose her job, and so you go with what’s worked before (in the case of ABC Family, which aired
Georgia,
that meant name-brand stars: you loved them in the 1990s, you’ll love them now!) Just know what’s coming; pick your battles, fight them hard, accept defeat gracefully, learn all you can . . . and then maybe try to get a deal with a cable outlet that doesn’t have to answer to advertisers, and could stand to learn that there are worlds outside of Brooklyn, and women who live there, and struggle, and sometimes even win.

Questions and Topics for Discussion

      1. What is the significance of swimming in
The Next Best Thing
? Why do you think it is such a cathartic activity for Ruth?

      2. How does Ruth use humor to her advantage? What purpose does it serve her? What did you think about her involvement with
Hellsmouth
?

      3. Throughout the novel, Ruth finds herself in situations where either she is disappointed by people involved in
The Next Best Thing,
or she knows she will be disappointing others. How does she handle these moments, and should she have handled any of them differently? What does Ruth mean when she says,
“I could do it all as long as I felt like my toughness was in the service of something important; that I was protecting the essential heart of my story”
?

      4. How does the novel depict male-female dynamics in Hollywood? For those people in positions of power, is their gender shown to be part of their success? Do you think that the outcome of
The Next Best Thing
would have been any different if the show had had a male show-runner, rather than a female?

      5. Consider the various interiors described within the novel—Ruth and Grandma’s home in Framingham, the Two Daves’s offices, Little Dave’s home. What does each physical space convey about the individuals who inhabit it?

      6. Why is television so sacred to Ruth? How do her beliefs about the power of television impact how she responds to the production process of
The Next Best Thing
?

      7. After announcing that she and Maurice are engaged, Grandma says to Ruth,
“I didn’t want to be alone, so I didn’t let you go when I should have . . . I should have pushed you out of the nest when it was time for you to go”
. Do you agree with Grandma’s assessment, or do you think their living arrangements were more mutually beneficial? How does her relationship with Ruth evolve over the course of the novel?

      8. Both Little Dave and Ruth have physical scars which are visibly apparent, but to what extent are they internally scarred as well? How do the ways in which they’ve been wounded shape their perspectives on the world—and how they view each other?

      9. Re-read Ruth’s description of the
three major themes in literature
. Which would you apply to
The Next Best Thing
? Is the novel more about man versus man—or man versus himself?

    10. Why do you think Ruth is devastated by Cady Stratton’s weight loss? When Dave tries to console Ruth, saying,
“There are pretty girls who can’t get out of their own way,”
Ruth responds: “
But nobody identifies with them
.” With whom do you agree, and why?

    11. How are traditional notions of beauty and sexuality challenged in the novel? Which couples get “happy endings” and what does that happiness look like?

    12. Discuss what the words “compromise,” “collaboration,” and “concession” mean to you. Are they simply variations on the same concept, or do you think there are distinct differences between these terms? As a group, can you agree upon an example of each in the novel?

Enhance Your Reading Group

The Next Best Thing
is Weiner’s tenth novel. If you haven’t already, consider reading
Good in Bed
, her debut, and discussing it as a group. In
The Next Best Thing,
how is Weiner revisiting some of the themes she raised in her first book, in new and different ways? How are Ruth and Cannie similar—and how are they different?

If you were to create a television show, what would the pilot be about? Which actors and actresses would comprise your dream cast? Share your imaginings with the group.

Before she was the heroine of
The Next Best Thing,
Ruth Saunders appeared in “Swim,” a short story featured in Jennifer Weiner’s bestselling collection
The Guy Not Taken
, and available as a free e-story online. If you haven’t already, read “Swim” as a group, and then discuss how Ruth has evolved in
The Next Best Thing
. In particular, what does Ruth learn in “Swim,” and how does she use those lessons in the novel?

To enjoy a free collection of excerpts from Jennifer Weiner’s irresistible novels, please click below.

Jennifer Weiner The Jennifer Weiner Reader's Companion   Click here to download.

Praise for
Then Came You

“Absorbing . . . a beach read in the classic sense.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer

“One of the biggest names in popular fiction.” —
USA Today

“An emotional and affecting story of the unlikely village that forms around the creation of one small person.”
—Miami Herald

“
Then Came You
is most centrally about women being each other’s fairy godmothers, each other’s ‘mysterious benefactors’—with money, with inspiration, with love, with learning, with luxury. If you’re a Weiner fan, you’ll lap it up. And if you don’t know her yet, here’s the place to start.”
—Washington Post

Praise for
Fly Away Home

“She writes the best page-turners around.” —
Elle

“Hilarious! An unflappably fun read. . . .The message is choosing to live an authentic life. As always, Weiner gives us a woman who stands taller, curvier, and happier when she does just that.” —
USA Today

“Witty and irreverent. . . .A compelling beach read.” —
The Washington Post

“Weiner is a writer of innate brilliance.
Fly Away Home
is a well-tuned hymn to the resilience of women in the wake of heartache, regret, and the failed promises of Botox.” —
Philadelphia Inquirer