By Cara Paiuk for Raising Kvell
Thirteen
years ago, a friend gave me a book to read saying that I would love it.
And I did. A curvy, Jewish girl who had a neurotic dog and is dating a
doctor? Check, check, and check. I felt an immediate kinship with Cannie
Shapiro and the woman who created her. With each subsequent book by
Jennifer Weiner, I, and thousands of other women, fell deeper in love
with her heroines and their creator. I sat down with Jen to discuss her fantastic new book, “All Fall Down,” about a suburban mommy blogger who succumbs to an addiction to prescription meds, her boyfriend (he loves her kids!) and what makes her kvell (same thing as most of us!).
What was the hardest part of writing “All Fall Down”?
People tell me they’re reading it with their hearts in their throats because every time Allison takes a pill, it’s like, “Is this going to be the one where there’s a real bad consequence?” And the hard part for me was my dad died of an overdose. It was sort of like putting myself into that headspace of: you know you shouldn’t be doing this, you don’t really want to be doing this, but you’re addicted. So your body is telling you “no” and your brain is telling you, “Oh just one more, doesn’t matter, no big deal.” And you know, Allison puts her kid at risk, so basically, just even imagining doing it, just writing the character of a mom who’s an addict, was hard.
Do you like Allison Weiss? Is she someone you would be friends with?
Continue reading.
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