“I am a rule follower and a good girl, so it was
really fun to occupy his brain for a little bit,” she
admits. “I think with some of my wishing I could
be a little more assertive; I was able to live vicar-
iously through his terrible behavior.”
Many readers have told Sweeney how they
found themselves growing fond of these charac-
ters, whom they did not initially like or would not
normally root for. “People are not black and
white,” she asserts. “I understand a lot of people
look to art to understand the world, and it’s a lot
easier if there are good guys and bad guys. I think
that’s not realistic. Good people make bad deci-
sions and bad people occasionally have moments
of grace. That spot is a more interesting place for
me as a reader and a writer.”
Sweeney was a marketing and communica-
tions copywriter for many years, and says the
experience was very helpful in writing this novel,
and even in preparing herself for going to
Bennington College in ;;;; to get a master’s in
fine arts.
“I just felt like I had a more pragmatic notion
about what writing was,” she explains. “You don’t
sit around waiting for some muse to strike. I get
asked a lot how I deal with writer’s block, and
there’s no such thing. You can have a good day of
writing, a mediocre day of writing or a frustrating
day of writing, but it’s not like magic. You sit down
and work. When you’re writing for money, you
don’t have the luxury of writer’s block. You have
to churn something out on a deadline.”
It took two years for Sweeney to finish The
Nest, which she started during her thesis period
at Bennington. And now, great things are on the
horizon for the author. The Nest has been optioned
for a movie, and Sweeney has been working on
the screenplay. She wants to be true to the book
but not slavishly so, given the numerous charac-
ters and storylines she has to juggle.
“The challenge is to try to pull the threads out
of the ones that are going to be most important
to tell,” she explains. “I’m trying to keep everyone
for the most part in the book, but I think the
Plumb siblings are going to come up a little higher,
and particularly Bea’s story is probably going to
take one big step for ward. I’m still trying to figure
out the particulars of that. I’ve watched a lot of
movie adaptations over the last few months, and
I feel like the ones that are the most successful
are true to the tone of the book but try to be their
own thing.” C
Bryan Reesman is an author and regular contributor to The Connection.
PENNIE’S PICK
I AM AN only child, so few
things fascinate me more than
stories about sibling interactions. What better way to dip
into that world than with this
month’s book buyer’s pick,
The Nest, by Cynthia D’Aprix
Sweeney?
This debut novel tells the
story of the four adult Plumb
children and their individual
plans for a shared trust fund.
Trouble begins when their
mother uses some of the
money to keep oldest sibling
Leo’s legal drama out of the
public eye. Now the other children must decide if they need
to reimagine their futures or
make Leo pay back the money.
Regardless of your own
family history, The Nest is sure
to make you recognize the
power—for better or worse—
of family relationships.
The Nest (Item #1142601)
will be available on April 4 in
most Costco warehouses.
For more book picks,
see page 97.
—Pennie Clark Ianniciello,
Buyer, Books
ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT
Costco has 50 signed copies of Cynthia D’Aprix
Sweeney’s The Nest to give away. To enter, go
to
costcoconnectionbookgiveaway.com.
NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS
NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.
Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes
is sponsored by Costco Wholesale, 1045 Lake Drive,
Issaquah, WA 98027. Open to legal residents of the U. S.
(except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time
of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received
before the May issue is available online, which will happen
around April
26, 2017. Winners will be randomly selected
and noti;ed by mail on or before June 1, 2017.
The value of the prize is $26.99. Void where prohibited.
Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state
and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number
of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or
HarperCollins and their families are not eligible.
SIGNED BOOK GIVEAWAY
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BY BRYAN REESMAN
SOMETIMES THE best-laid
plans crumble apart, and that
can be a character-building
experience. In Cynthia D’Aprix
Sweeney’s best-selling debut
novel, The Nest, the four middle-aged Plumb siblings aspire
to be part of the New York City
elite and hope their inheritance will elevate them and
solve their problems. But when irresponsible
man-child Leo gets into a car accident with a
teenager in tow and faces legal woes, the family’s
icy matriarch keeps the scandal private by tapping
into her children’s nest egg. Now Leo’s siblings,
Bea (procrastinating author), Melody (anxious
mother) and Jack (struggling antiques dealer),
have to work out how to get him to reimburse them
and cope with a fraying safety net.
The Plumb family lives on the edge of privileged life, not in it, and this was a conscious choice
by the author, who grew up in a staunchly middle-class environment in Rochester, New York. After
studying journalism at St. Bonaventure University, Sweeney moved to Manhattan in ;;;; and
became exposed to the type of entitlement that
she had been unaware of, which allows people to
inherit status and wealth through lineage. “It’s a
fortune of birth,” she says, which was different
than the “more pragmatic kind of environment”
she grew up in.
As the oldest of four children, Sweeney, a
Costco member, understands the sibling dynamic
of the Plumb clan well, and brought that into her
tale of wrangled inheritance. She says that putting
all four characters together would result in a
pretty good approximation of her, but thankfully
she shares no similarities with narcissistic Leo.
Money troubles fracture family in The Nest
Squabbling siblings
Cynthia D’Aprix
Sweeney
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