Jennifer Weiner - Then Came You

My thanks to my brilliant agent, Joanna Pulcini, and my unflappable editor, Greer Hendricks, for ten years of support, camaraderie, and fun.

I’m grateful to Joanna’s assistant, Katherine Hennes, Greer’s assistant, Sarah Cantin, and my assistant, the smart, funny, and eternally cheerful Meghan Burnett.

Carolyn Reidy, queen of Simon & Schuster, and Judith Curr, the publisher of Atria Books, are the best advocates and supporters that any writer could wish for. My thanks also to everyone on the Atria team: Chris Lloreda, Lisa Sciambra, Natalie White, Craig Dean, Lisa Keim, Hilary Tisman, Jeanne Lee, and Anna Dorfman, who gave Then Came You such a beautiful cover. Copy-editor Nancy Inglis keeps me honest (and grammatical).

Across the pond, I am grateful for the efforts of Suzanne Baboneau, Ian Chapman, Jessica Leeke, and Nigel Stoneman at Simon & Schuster UK.

Jessica Bartolo at Greater Talent Network makes my speaking engagements a joy. Marcy Engelman, Dana Gidney Fetaya, and Emily Gambir do an amazing job of telling the world about my books, whether the world wants to hear or not, and getting me in magazines and on talk shows, whether I belong there or not.

This is the first year I’ve balanced novel-writing with show-running, so I’m grateful to the writers and the stars of ABC Family’s State of Georgia for their patience with a TV newbie. Thanks to Jeff Greenstein, who dreamed up Georgia with me, to Kirk Rudell, Hayes Jackson, Greg Schaffer, Regina Hicks, Annabel Oakes, Frank Pines, T. J. Johnson, Eric Buchman, and Melissa Oren for making me laugh every day, and to Loretta Devine, Majandra Delfino, and Raven-Symoné for bringing my words to life.

On the home front, my writing life wouldn’t be possible without the love and support of my friends and family. I’m grateful to Terri Gottlieb, who watches my daughters while I write, and to Lucy Jane and Phoebe Pearl for sharing me with my imaginary friends.

Most of all, thanks to everyone who reads my books, and my tweets, and my Facebook feed. None of this would be possible without you.

Questions & Topics for Discussion

1. Discuss the different mothers that make up Then Came You. How does the behavior of these women directly affect their children?

2. India, Annie, and Jules are all motivated, to a large degree, by financial gain. How did this affect your feelings towards them? Were some of their motivations more acceptable to you than others?

3. When visiting her father in Pittsburgh, Jules comments, “ I don’t make excuses. I know what he’s doing is illegal. I know that he’s a drain on taxpayers’ resources, that people who work hard at their jobs are the ones paying for his apartment and his food, for the cops that bust him and the counselors who hand him pamphlets about AA and methadone…But he’s my father…and I don’t believe that it’s his fault. It’s not like he’s lazy, some privileged rich kid trying to escape from some imaginary heartache or chasing some feel-good high. He takes drugs so that he can feel something close to normal.”Do you agree with Jules’ assessment? How do you view addiction?

4. Surrogacy is a hot-button topic, and many on both ends of the political spectrum take issue with it. Corinne and Nancy are examples of each, and voice two different, opposing views to surrogacy. Locate their arguments within the text. Do you agree with either of these opinions? Where do you stand?

5. The novel suggests several motivations for India wanting to have a child. In the end, why do you think this was important to her?

6. Did Jules’ story, and the novel in general, change any of your perceptions of egg donation? Would you ever donate an egg? Do you think of egg donation differently than you do sperm donation? Why?

7. Discuss Gabe and Annie’s relationship. What purpose do you think Gabe ultimately serves in Annie’s life?

8. Early in her marriage, India remarks, “ What I was learning was that having was, strangely, less satisfying than wanting…that dreaming of all of this luxury was somehow better than actually possessing it.” Can you empathize with this sentiment? Do you think Annie would agree?

9. Consider the different family structures portrayed in the book. What do you think Then Came Youis saying about families?

10. Annie worries that Frank will feel he isn’t providing sufficiently for his family, if she decides to become a surrogate so that she can contribute to the family income. She also notices that Frank is more likely to lose his temper around bill-paying time. Do you empathize with Frank here?

11. If you were to use a surrogate and/or a donor egg to have a child, would you want either of these women to be involved in your life after the child was born? Why or why not?

12. Weiner is masterful at describing physical settings. Locate some instances where an interior is described, and discuss what you learn about the people that inhabit that space from this description.

13. Did your opinion of India change as the novel progressed? If so, what caused this shift?

14. At their first meeting, Kate Klein says to Bettina, “I always tell my clients to be careful what they wish for.” Do you think Bettina made the right decision in choosing not to tell her father what she had learned of India’s past?

15. Perception is an important, but often subtle theme of Then Came You.Discuss how each of the main characters wrestles with the way they are publicly perceived. In what ways do they each strive to control their image?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Imagine that you are searching for a donor egg, and consider what you would look for in an ideal candidate. Would they share many of the qualities or attributes you recognize in yourself, or would you want them to possess others? You might also write down these characteristics (be as specific as possible) and share them as a group. Are there common qualities that you would all desire from a donor?2. Pretend that you are a casting director and that Then Came You is your latest project. Who would you cast to portray Annie, Jules, India, and Bettina? What about Frank, Kimmie, Darren, and Marcus?3. Before meeting with your group, read “Meet the Twiblings” by Melanie Thernstrom, a feature that ran in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Discuss how the issues that Ms. Thernstrom grapples with are handled within Then Came You.4. In the final scene of Then Came You we hear “the mythology of Rory’s essential beginnings.” Think about the kind of narrative that you were told to you as a child about your “beginnings”—and if you’re a parent, consider the narratives that you’ve crafted to tell your child. Share these with the group.

A Conversation with Jennifer Weiner

You’ve said before that each of your books has begun with a mental snapshot, a clear visual in your mind. Was that the case with Then Came You, and if so, what was that image? In general, what drew you to the topics of surrogacy and egg donation?

A few years back, the New York Times ran a story by a woman who was unable to carry a pregnancy and eventually hired a surrogate in Pennsylvania to carry a child for her. The infertile woman was married to an older man with adult children. The two of them were very well-off, and the story didn’t stint on the details of her wealth (I remember references to white-water rafting, bourbon tastings, and trips to the SuperBowl) while the surrogate was a woman of much more modest means, whose college degree and computer proficiency were met with condescending surprise.

The story was rich with subtext — about class, about cash, about the way you can get pretty much whatever you want in the world if you’ve got the money to pay for it — but it was the pictures that stayed with me. There was a shot of the new mother, standing in front of her estate in the Hamptons, with a uniformed black maid behind her, holding the baby, like a prize, in her arms…and, a few pages later, a picture of the surrogate on the porch of a falling-down farmhouse by a river, literally barefoot and pregnant.

I had several thoughts at the time, including, “I wonder if the writer had any idea that these were the pictures that would run with the story,” and “Wow. Barefoot and pregnant. Srsly, NYT?” And “have I really given dark spirits enough of a chance?”

But then I thought that there’s something unsettling about the notion of a rich lady paying a less-rich lady to carry her baby, the same way a rich lady might pay a less-rich lady to clean her house, or wax her legs, or do some other bit of grubby, less-glamorous business that the rich woman didn’t want to do herself. Does money belong in the equation when people think about how to build their families? If it’s a necessary evil; if pregnancy’s really just another service, with providers and consumers, how does that play out? All of these were questions that I wrestled with in Then Came You.

What kind of research did you do for Then Came You

I had read a lot about surrogacy for Certain Girls, so the research for this book involved reading a lot of first-person accounts from egg donors — what you go through physically, and what it feels like when the donation is complete.