← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Beach Reads: 'The Griffin Sister's Greatest Hits'
00:19:39
Bestselling author Jennifer Weiner's latest novel The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits follows sisters Zoe and Cassie as they skyrocket to early‑2000s pop stardom.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. Hi, I'm Alison Stewart. Today we continue our Beach Read series with a book that will have you laughing, crying and screaming sometimes at the same time. Jennifer Weiner is back with her book called the Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits. It tells the stories of two sisters, one talented Cassie and one pretty Zoe, who have a giant hit in the early 2000s. The kinds where their fans tell them their song changes their life. Fast forward to 2024. Zoe's a housewife in New Jersey while Cassie is hiding in Alaska. They broke, but what happens to them remains a mystery until Zoe's daughter Cherry joins a TV singing competition. In Cherry's Journey to Fame, she hopes to find her Aunt Cassie and uncover the mystery of the Griffin Sisters. From her debut book Good in Bed to In Her Shoes, which became the 2005 film starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, Jennifer Weiner writes stories about women who are complex, compelling, who challenge expectations around femininity. The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits is out now. And Jennifer, it is so nice to speak with you.
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Jennifer Weiner
It's nice to talk to you, too. Thank you for having me.
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Alison Stewart
In the Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits, you have two women.
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Jennifer Weiner
I know, it's a tongue twister. I'll get there.
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Alison Stewart
I'll get there. We meet them through their mother's eyes initially, right through Janet because they're just born months apart. That's harrowing. When you read that in the book, how did you see the mom as a way to set us up for how Zoe and Cassie, what they would be like.
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Jennifer Weiner
So that's really interesting because in every book I write, there's this, like, huge, shaggy, messy first draft. And in the first draft of the Griffin Sisters, there was a lot about the mom. You learned all about her, all about her childhood and how she got married and how she decided to become a mother and this, this whole big thing about what she wants out of her life, which of course my editor is just like, we too much, too much. You know, but basically this is a woman who's decided she's grown up with all of these brothers and sisters and parents who don't have a lot of money. So she wants, like, control, right? She wants, like a Neat, orderly, regulated life. She wants one kid because that's all they can afford. And she gets pregnant with her second child when her daughter is basically still a newborn, which it was. I don't write horror, but that was about scariest thing that I could think of as a mom.
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Alison Stewart
Seriously.
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Jennifer Weiner
Right, yeah. And so not only does she have the second child that she has not planned for, that she doesn't really want. This child is not a kid who is easy to understand or easy for her to love. So that's the way in is we've got this dynamic where there's the older daughter who sort of lives up to parental expectations and is pretty and is agreeable and can make her way easily in the world. And then there's Cassie, who is a musical prodigy but also a hot mess.
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Alison Stewart
Well, what is the relationship like between perfect Zoe and talented but a hot mess Cassie?
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Jennifer Weiner
Yeah. So I have had occasion to think a lot about how parenting has changed since I was a kid. And growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was a lot of what my mother used to call benign neglect where you could just sort of like we were free ranging kids, you know, you just sort of, you know, go outside and play. I'll see you at dinner time. Go, go ride your bike. Come back when the lights are on.
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Alison Stewart
The street lights.
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Jennifer Weiner
Exactly. Right. And I'm one of four. So I always joke that there were a couple of us who were expendable. You know, it's like there were more where we came from. Right. So the idea that Cassie and Zoe's parents have is that they know that Cassie is struggling and they make her Zoe's job. They tell Zoe, take care of your sister, help your sister, be her friend, sit with her at lunch, go to the birthday parties with her, go to the pool with her, you know, so here is poor Zoe who just wants to live her life and she gets turned into her sister's kind of emotional support animal in a way that I don't think many parents in our enlightened 2025 would allow to happen. But you know, back in the day, that was kind of what you did.
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Alison Stewart
What were you trying to explore with this idea of sisterhood and these particular characters?
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Jennifer Weiner
Yeah, I mean, so sisterhood is so complicated always, even when you don't have pop stardom and a family act band layered it on top of it. But I wanted to play with the ideas of talent and obligation. Right. Like what if you have an ability, a skill, a gift, a talent, what are you then required to do with it? Right. Like, you know, Zoe's genius is kind of interpolated personal skills. And so is she. Is she then required to hold her sister's hand and lead her through the thickets of other kids? And Cassie is a musical prodigy who wants a life in classical music where basically, you know, 20 people are going to hear her maybe. And Zoe wants to be famous. And so when Zoe is a teenager and she's in this Spice Girls cover band and they're in a battle of the bands and somebody drops out because there's boy drama. And she says to her sister, you owe me. You have to help because I did all these things for you and I need you to do something for me. And then that gets super complicated because Cassie is so good that all of Zoe's dreams come true. The band gets signed, the band takes off. It's all happening just the way she wanted it. But it's not her doing. It's not because of her talent. It's not, you know, even her pretty face. Well, there's a lot of pretty girls who can shake a tambourine and look cute while they're doing it. So, you know, it's. I wanted to, I wanted to write about that. Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
Now we know that something tragic happens to the sisters for causing them to be estranged and won't give too much away. But how much did the pressure of fame, once they become famous, deepen the problems that were already there.
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Jennifer Weiner
Yeah. So that was the other thing I wanted to talk about was what the world was like for young women and especially young famous women in the early aughts. And of course that meant Britney. That meant reading Britney's biography, going back and all of the total request lives that live forever on YouTube of the tabloid covers that are, that are there. And it was shocking. I mean, like the weight shaming and the body shaming and the like, you know, Britney's gone crazy, Jessica Simpson's fat now, like just all of this hysteria about these women and their bodies and their love lives and their choices and it was just such a you can't win situation. And so here are Cassie and Zoe. And Cassie's larger Cassie is a plus size heroine. So the record label, of course, is always trying to hide her behind something a la Carney Wilson of Wilson Phillips. That's where I went. Putting grand pianos and boulders where grand pianos and boulders don't belong.
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Alison Stewart
Just so no one in a music video, right?
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Jennifer Weiner
Just. Yeah, just a big boulder. Right. You know, and, and even Zoe, who is beautiful, there's like body checking going on where, like, there's a record label executive who kind of puts his arm around her and gives her a little pinch and is like, we'll have a StairMaster sent to your hotel room. So I wanted to talk about the body stuff. I wanted to talk about the. The envy and the. The rivalry. And just, you know, it's already so hard and so complicated between these two young women, and then adding sort of a love triangle in there and all of the scrutiny, all of the tabloid and paparazzi and all of that pressure and you know, just the way that women got ground up like sausage meat back then, you know, And I. I say back then, and I'd like to think that things are like, oh, they're better now. We would never, ever, ever talk about a young woman that way. But I'm so sure that's true.
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Alison Stewart
I'm interested in you reading the Britney biography.
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Jennifer Weiner
Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
What surprised you when you're reading the Britney biography?
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Jennifer Weiner
Well, I mean, you know, I think it was remembering back to that Diane Sawyer interview where Diane. So it's the Britney Justin breakup has just happened, and the narrative that Justin's camp has put out there is that she cheated on him. You know, there was the Crimea river video, and there was that whole thing. And so Diane Sawyer is, like, grilling Britney, like, what did you do to this poor young man? You broke his heart. How could you do this? And then you're reading the book and you're learning there was cheating going on, but Justin was cheating on Britney. And then she was pregnant. And, you know, this was when she was still sort of, you know, walking the virginity line. And so that couldn't happen. And so they're, like, arranging for this abortion, but she, like, actually go to a doctor's office, so she's like, you know, writhing in agony on the bathroom floor while Justin is serenading her on his guitar. And I just wanted to be like, Justin, that's not helping. But just, you know, that was not the story that you were getting if you were reading Us Weekly.
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Alison Stewart
I'm speaking with author Jennifer Weiner about her new book, the Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits, as well as the Britney biography. I might have to check that out. Let's talk about another relationship in the book, Zoe and her daughter Cherry. Zoe's in Jersey, Haddonfield, New Jersey, being a housewife. Cherry is hoping to pursue a music career. Of course she is. Right?
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Jennifer Weiner
Of course she is. Right.
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Alison Stewart
Of course she is. What is it about Zoe's experience in the music industry that has her worried for Cherry?
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Jennifer Weiner
Well, Having survived pop stardom in the aughts and all of the stuff we were talking about, the body stuff, the scrutiny about your love life, the idea that if anything happened in the band or in your relationship, the woman was gonna get blamed. I mean, you can go back and see that happening over and over and over again with all of pop stars from the aughts. And she's also been the victim of a sexual assault, which she in her own head isn't really calling a sexual assault. Like she hasn't quite gotten her arms around the language of what's happened to her and what a violation it was. But she knows what it's like to be a young woman and to want fame so badly that you will do everything, anything. And she can see her daughter sort of getting ready to like feed herself into the machine that chewed up Zoe and chewed up Cassie and sort of left them these like broken husks of people. And of course she doesn't want that for her daughter. And of course the more she tells Cherry, no, no, no, the more Cherry wants it.
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Alison Stewart
Cherry's like an 18 year old girl.
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Jennifer Weiner
She'S sort of rebellious. And as the mother of teenagers, I can tell you that like the surest way to get your kid to do something is for you to tell them, don't do that, because here's how it went for me. Because they're going to be like, well, I'm not you and I'm different and things have changed and it's better now and, and what do you know anyhow? And you know, that sort of thing.
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Alison Stewart
How much did you pull from your own 18 year old when you were writing Cherry?
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Jennifer Weiner
Yeah, I mean I can definitely, you know, I think, I think any 18 year old thinks that she's bulletproof, right? And thinks that like anything the world did to the women who came before her, whether they're her mother or her teachers or her mentors or just people that she knows in the world, like that's not going to happen to her. She knows better, she is stronger, she is aware, you know, she's going in with her eyes open and she's not going to let any of this happen. And you know, and for Cherry, I think some of that is, is true, but some of it is not. And I think that Zoe knows more than she does about like just how bad it can be. Because really there's, it's a supply and demand issue. Like if you're not willing to do X or Y or Z to make the band, there are a thousand girls in line behind you, who will do X and Y and Z and all of it to get where they want to go.
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Alison Stewart
Many of the characters in this book are struggling on some level with their mental health. What was it like to get inside the head of a character like Cassie who is battling depression and self blame?
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Jennifer Weiner
Yeah, I mean, Cassie was really, really interesting to me because I think if she had been born more recently, like she would have had a diagnosis. Like instead of just being like she's socially awkward or she's weird or she's, you know, whatever she is, like, I think that people would recognize that she's somewhere on the spectrum and needed support. But there wasn't that support in the 70s and in the 80s and you know, so she's sort of, she doesn't have. She's missing some innate abilities. She doesn't, she didn't get the support that might have helped her. And she feels just like incredibly guilty. She blames herself for this tragedy that's happened. She thinks everything is her fault. And she thinks that the way to make it right is to kind of do penance and to take herself as far away from everyone she's hurt as she can get, which ends up being Alaska. And it was really interesting. My husband and I traveled to Alaska, like in part just cause I'd always wanted to go there, but also cause I knew part of this book was going, going to be set there. And when you talk to people or actually, you know, when you eavesdrop on other conversations like you hear. A lot of people in Alaska seem to have left some previous version of themselves behind for some kind of reason. Like, you know, there are native Alaskans, but there are also a lot of people who flamed out some other place. And I wanted to sort of write about that landscape and just how far away Cassie feels and how, you know, how well it fits with her sense of herself. Like it's dark 20 hours a day and that's how she feels.
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Alison Stewart
The name of the book is the Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits. It's by my guest, Jennifer Weiner. Jennifer, someone might choose your book to read. As part of our summer reading challenge here at wnyc, we've invited you to fill out our list of books you would recommend. For our list, a classic that you've been meaning to get to. What did you pick?
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Jennifer Weiner
I picked Middlemarch, but man, I don't know if it's gonna happen. Like I want to be a person who has read Middlemarch, but I understand for that to be true. I'm going to have to read Middlemarch, and I just. I just can't. Every summer I try. I do.
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Alison Stewart
How about a book that's set or about New York City?
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Jennifer Weiner
So I picked American Psycho because, yeah, I read that book in college, and it really, really made an impression. And I think that the New York that that book describes is not a New York that exists anymore. And I think it would be interesting for young people who never got to see that part of New York before. Times Square felt like a Disney ride, you know, to kind of remember what it was like.
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Alison Stewart
That's by Bret Easton Ellis. A memoir or a biography that has your interest.
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Jennifer Weiner
So I picked Graydon Carter's when the Going Was Good, Just Grey. And Carter was the editor of Vanity Fair when you could spend $100,000 on room service for a story. You know, like, as a former journalist, I was so, so interested in, like, that high life, you know, the. The absolute height of, like, oh, we're going to get Annie Leibowitz to take the COVID photo, and it's going to cost half a million do and sign new houses. Like, okay, all right. You know, it's like a fairy tale.
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Alison Stewart
A recent debut novel. This is one of my favorites of the year. I love this. This book. Blob.
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Jennifer Weiner
Blob Love Story. Okay, so young woman working in a cheap hotel discovers what she thinks is, like, maybe a blobfish outside of a bar and brings it home as one does. And it starts turning into a man.
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Alison Stewart
The perfect man.
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Jennifer Weiner
Yes. A hot man. And so it's a little. I think it's like a modern spin on Frankenstein. Right. Because, like, she's creating this guy, but he's also pushing back on her. And there's this hilarious section where he's like, I'm a slave and slavery's illegal, which he knows cause he's been watching PBS.
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Alison Stewart
We've got 30 more seconds, and I do want to get your last one.
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Jennifer Weiner
Yes.
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Alison Stewart
A book published in 2025 by Mia McKenzie.
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Jennifer Weiner
Yes. These heathens. Young woman in poor rural Alabama unexpectedly pregnant in the days before Roe versus Wade. Yeah. And she and her teacher go on an adventure to solve her problem. Very timely.
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Alison Stewart
Jennifer Wynn, thank you for your time.
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Jennifer Weiner
Oh, this was fantastic. Thank you so much.
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