‘The Wife’ author Meg Wolitzer answers your questions

Meg Wolitzer:

My mother has only been supportive of me since I was young. And she didn’t have that same kind of support from her parents. She grew up in a different era. And I grew up when I did.

And, in fact, I used something in a novel of mine that had happened in real life. I gave a reading somewhere, and during the Q&A, a woman stood up and said, “My daughter wants to be a playwright. What should I tell her? I know how hard it is.”

And I said, “Is she talented?”

And the woman said, “Yes, very.”

I said, “Is she burning to do it?”

And she said yes. And I said, “I think you should tell her that’s wonderful. The world will whittle your daughter down, but a mother never should.”

My mother never did. And that’s really, I think, why I wrote this book and all my books.