Unlike most first-time authors, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney didn't start writing fiction until her mid 40s. But that's not the only thing that makes Sweeney and her debut novel stand out.

As of press time, The Nest, which was published in March, has spent 13 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Ecco, which paid a seven-figure advance for the manuscript, has printed 275,000 copies and sold rights in 22 countries; meanwhile, the novel has been optioned for film with "Transparent" creator Jill Soloway (who is also a friend of Sweeney's) as a producer. Clearly, this story of four adult siblings, who lose an anticipated inheritance thanks to their eldest brother's big mistake, is resonating in a major way.

We asked Sweeney, who lives in Los Angeles, a few questions about her breakout debut. 

How did it feel to see your first novel hit the bestseller list?
Like everything else that's happened in my life this year, it was a completely surreal experience. I think the morning I was at a hotel with my husband and the New York Times Book Review was delivered to us—the week my book was at number 2—along with room service breakfast was the most out-of-body moment. I'm still not sure I've processed the whole thing.

Early on, you considered going into publishing. How do you think your writing career would be different if you had? What do you think your years as a marketing copywriter brought to this book? 
The first question isn't one I can really answer. I don't look back and try to reimagine decades of my life on a different path—it's too vertigo inducing. I also try to find value in my past decisions, even the ones that I quickly regretted or realized I had to undo. My years as a freelance writer were incredibly important because I grew into a very disciplined and focused worker. I understand that writing is a job, and you need to show up for work every day. I believe that some days are easier than others, but I don't believe in waiting for inspiration to strike. 

Now that The Nest is in the hands of readers, have there been any reactions to it that surprised you?
I always described the book as being about family. It's surprised me to hear it described by other people as a book about money. The plot centers on money, of course, but I don't think it's what the book is about, per se. We don't talk a lot about money in this country—I think the book has given people the opportunity to talk about something that is important in everyone's life but rarely discussed in public.

This book really delves into the relationships between adult siblings—the deep connection, but also the way that the family you create can sometimes be a point of conflict with the family you were born into. Why did writing about adult siblings appeal to you?
I grew up in a very Irish-Italian Catholic environment and almost everyone I grew up with had lots of brothers and sisters. I'm the oldest of four, and I always described our family as "small"—and it was small compared to most of my friends' families. I've always been interested in sibling dynamics and how those relationships become more intense as everyone ages.

Again, from a plot perspective The Nest is about four adult siblings fighting over money, but I believe the book is really about the one thing we all inherit simply by being born: our place in a family narrative. We just become the youngest or the oldest and often are assigned other convenient labels—the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one—that may be rooted in truth but are still reductive and hard to shake off. 

I'm also interested in the idea that because you share DNA and a history with people, you will necessarily share values or a common vision for the future. Sometimes you will and sometimes you won't and either way is okay!

The characters in The Nest are struggling with something we all have to face—to differing degrees depending on circumstances—but all of us, eventually, have to reconcile the story we inherit with the one we want to write for ourselves. It's hard to claim your own desires and take responsibility for your own choices—and mistakes. The Nest is definitely a book about making mistakes and discovering who in your life will forgive you and help you when things are tough. 

Do you agree with Warren Buffet's maxim that "a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing"?
I am the worst financial adviser on Earth, but that sounds like a wise plan! I mainly believe that it's a very complicated, personal decision and depends on the people involved.

You've lived on both coasts. How do you think attitudes about money and wealth are different in Los Angeles vs. New York City?
New York City is a much older city than Los Angeles and so it has layers of old money, which is a very particular and exclusive kind of club. Los Angeles money is newer and it's a little flashier, but more inclusive. If you can pay, you belong! There's plenty of that in New York City, too, but there is also plenty of the "who are your parents and grandparents and Yale or Harvard?" kind of exclusivity that doesn't really exist in Los Angeles, a place where people can reinvent themselves week to week if they choose. 

What would you blow a huge inheritance on?
An apartment in New York City, and if there was any left over, a little place in Rome.

What are you working on next?
I hope I'm working on a new novel, but it's a little too soon to tell.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Readers who devour quirky family dramas like Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Be Frank With Me won't want to miss this anticipated debut about a dysfunctional New York City family. In The Nest, the four adult Plumb children have been counting on their inheritance: Melody has two daughters to send to college, Jack needs some cash to keep his struggling business afloat, and Beatrice is years overdue with her second novel. But when their fresh-out-of-rehab oldest brother, Leo, loses it all, the siblings must reshape their futures. 

Author Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney worked as a marketing copywriter before turning to fiction. She's at her best when describing the fluctuating sibling bonds within a large family—the uneasy alliances, the simmering resentments, the unspoken secrets and the fierce love. She also nails the ways the money can affect relationships, in ways large and small. Smart, moving and warm-hearted, The Nest is a debut to savor.

 

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Grand in scale, somber in message, Barkskins, Annie Proulx's sprawling historical novel, is an old-fashioned tale of exploration and discovery that chronicles the destruction of the world's forests. The novel follows the fortunes of René Sel and Charles Duquet, two poor Frenchmen in 17th-­century Canada who become woodcutters, or barkskins. Sel marries a Mi'kmaw woman and fights to eke out a life, while Duquet goes on to start a timber enterprise. The book tracks their descendants as they struggle to survive in far-flung locales, including New Zealand and China, deforesting every region they enter and clashing with native cultures along the way. Proulx spins this epic tale all the way into the present day. Her richly developed characters, including Duquet's great-grandson, James Duke, who continues the family timber business, and his smart, resourceful daughter, Lavinia, keep the book from being preachy or pedagogic. This is a rewarding read from a world-class writer that's sure to get book clubs talking.

FAMILY MONEY
One of the biggest debuts of 2016, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's shrewdly observed novel, The Nest, is the story of the Plumb siblings and their struggles over an anticipated inheritance. Melody, Jack and Beatrice have a face-off with their brash, irresponsible brother, Leo, whose car accident (involving lots of alcohol and a teenage waitress) has imperiled their shared trust fund, which they refer to as "the nest." Each Plumb sibling needs the money to solve a particular problem. Melody is contending with a mortgage and her daughters' college tuition, while Jack is hoping for a bailout on funds he borrowed to keep his antique store afloat. Aspiring writer Beatrice, meanwhile, needs all the help she can get as she wrestles with her first novel. The story of how the Plumbs resolve the matter of the nest makes for a funny, poignant family saga. Sweeney writes convincingly about domestic feuds and sibling dynamics. This is a delightful debut from a writer of great promise.

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS
Nearly two years after it was first released, Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See arrives in paperback this month. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel follows the lives of two characters during World War II in Europe. Werner is a German orphan who—thanks to his remarkable facility for math—is placed in a special Nazi school. ­Marie-Laure, a young blind girl, lives in Paris with her father. When the war escalates, Marie-Laure and her father flee to Saint-Malo, a walled city in Brittany where they have relatives involved in the French Resistance. Werner, meanwhile, rises through the ranks of Hitler Youth to become a Resistance tracker. When he arrives in Saint-Malo, he connects with Marie-Laure, and their lives change forever. Doerr's beautifully rendered novel has all the makings of a classic. Poetic, compassionate and compelling, it's a book that will stand the test of time.

This article was originally published in the April 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

This anticipated debut novel from Sweeney typifies the Internet meme "white people problems" even more than most current New York City-based literary fiction. It concerns the Plumb siblings, four middle-class New Yorkers, and their upcoming inheritance. The Plumb patriarch set aside a sum to become available to the four of them when the youngest, Melody, turned 40, in order to teach them a lesson about independence. The story opens with Leo Plumb high on cocaine and getting into a car wreck as he seduces a 19-year-old waitress, a scandal that puts the now hefty inheritance at risk. The story moves along briskly, shifting perspectives between the Plumbs and those associated with them. There is Melody, the youngest, and her teenage daughter's sexual awakening; Jack, an antique dealer, and his secret husband; Leo and publisher girlfriend Stephanie, who owns a brownstone in Brooklyn and rents the lower floor to a man who lost his wife in 9/11; and finally, Bea, the failed novelist. These stories are seamlessly combined as predictable tragedies and triumphs befall everyone. VERDICT Anyone with siblings will appreciate the character dynamics at play here, although they may not care much for each character individually. A fun, quick read recommended for fans of Emma Straub and Meg Wolitzer. [See Prepub Alert, 9/28/15.]—Kate Gray, Boston P.L., MA

It's bad news for the Plumb siblings when big brother Leo drunkenly hops into a car with a 19-year-old waitress and has a wreck. Now their joint trust fund, which was to have been distributed to them momentarily, has been jeopardized. A big-deal debut: there's a 150,000-copy first printing and a six-city tour.

As four middle-aged Plumb siblings—Leo, Beatrice, Jack, and Melody—await the distribution of the trust fund their father had established for them as just an extra dividend in what he assumed would be their financially comfortable lives, they find themselves in dire economic straits. Unfortunately, the Nest (as they call the trust fund) had been used to settle the medical bills for a young woman who was badly injured when an inebriated Leo crashed his Porsche while they were inside it and getting intimate. Already a sadly dysfunctional family, the siblings plan to confront Leo. In a clever touch that reveals their hopes and desperation, each secretly has a drink in a different Manhattan bar before they convene to hear Leo swear he will get his act together and pay back the money. That Leo can't be trusted is evident to the reader right away, but his segue into a meaningful domestic relationship with a literary agent seems hopeful. Meanwhile, his siblings try to avoid other financial crises, brought on by their own irresponsible behavior. Jack can't repay the loans he has kept secret from his husband; Melody won't be able to meet the mortgage payments on her home or forthcoming college tuition for her twin daughters; Bea has been forced to return the advance on the second novel she cannot write. In her debut, Sweeney spins a fast-moving, often-humorous narrative, and her portrait of each sibling is compassionate even as she reveals their foibles with emotional clarity. She sets scenes among iconic Manhattan watering places, capturing the tempo of various neighborhoods. Her writing is assured, energetic, and adroitly plotted, sweeping the reader along through an engrossing narrative that endears readers to the Plumb family for their essential humanity. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Mar.)

The four Plumb siblings are waiting for their inheritance (affectionately called the nest) to be dispersed once the youngest sister turns 40. The nest has been growing exponentially since their father's untimely death when they were all adolescents, and each one of the Plumbs has been making poor financial decisions in the hopes of being bailed out by the nest. Instead, the oldest brother is allowed to withdraw the majority of the money early to be used as a payoff for an unfortunate accident he causes. The story develops as the remaining siblings begin to navigate life and the consequences of their decisions without a safety net, but the plot is much more complex than a look at four dysfunctional and often selfish siblings. Teens will initially be pulled into the story by the shocking events in the prologue, but they will connect with the siblings as they recognize aspects of themselves in each of them. The epilogue goes beyond a typical happy ending, illustrating how the siblings have changed and learned more about themselves. YA readers will enjoy immersing themselves in the trendy side of life in New York, as well as coming to understand how adult life may not be all it seems on a well-crafted surface. VERDICT A strong choice for demonstrating how adulthood is as much of a discovering process as adolescence. Purchase where coming-of-age tales are needed.—April Sanders, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL