Miss Popularity

JENNIFER WEINER’S NEW novel, Goodnight Nobody, is a mystery set in Connecticut, in a town remarkably like Simsbury, her hometown. "I always wanted to make fun of a place like that. It was bad. A very Wasp-y, very Republican, John Cheever short-story-ish kind of place."

Upchurch, the fictional town of the book, is filled with Talbots and "Tal-bots," as the protagonist, Kate Klein, calls them, the sort of women who always play the well-groomed foils to the spirited heroines of Weiner’s novels. The set of "supermommies" in Goodnight Nobody could be the grown-up version of the popular gang from Simsbury High, with their shiny hair, trim figures and jerky-jock husbands, one of whom, when questioned about his murdered ex-girlfriend’s problems, says breezily, "Oh, you know, bad jobs, bad boyfriends … aren’t there a lot of books with pink covers about that?"

The novel opens with one of the supermommies face-down in the kitchen, with a knife in her back. The imagery is not subtle.

Back at Pasión, I mention that I had a journalism professor who liked to say that all writers were high-school nerds getting revenge.

"Don’t you think that’s true, though?" says Weiner. "It makes you very observant, very aware, because you are aware of all of the things you are not. And I ultimately think that we go on to lead more interesting lives."

Just to be sure, the next day I place a call to Simsbury, Connecticut, to a girl Weiner mentions from her high-school class but says I’m not allowed to name, a shiny-haired girl with a shiny life whom Weiner remembers as perfect.

A baby is screaming in the background when the woman picks up the phone. "Oh my God! It’s so weird that you called when you did, because I just finished Jennifer’s third book. It was the first time I’ve been able to read in forever because I just had another baby, and I looooved it. I thought it was so great — stop that! Mommy’s on the phone and you’re being very rude! I rode the bus with her, like, forever. We sat next to each other in homeroom. We weren’t really good friends. But I wouldn’t say we weren’t friends. Anyway. I’m sooo impressed with what she’s done. She’s amazing. I think it’s wonderful that I know her."

Jessica Pressler last wrote for Philadelphia on Philly’s PR divas. E-mail: mail@phillymag.com.