DREAM COME TRUE

Photo-illustration: Joanna Neborsky

I recently spoke with a number of authors who’d had their books picked by either the “big four” clubs — Oprah, Good Morning America, Read With Jenna, and Reese’s Book Club — and some of the up-and-coming clubs, like Dakota Johnson’s TeaTime and Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss’s Belletrist. The interview that stood out most to me was with Marissa Stapley, whose fourth novel Lucky was a Reese pick in December 2021. Unlike most of the authors I spoke to, Stapley wasn’t picked for her debut novel. In fact, she doesn’t even think it’s her best book (that would be 2024’s The Lightning Bottles). Lucky didn’t sell for seven figures at auction, like some of the other picks whose authors I spoke with, and while it had U.S. distribution, it had only sold rights in Stapley’s native Canada before Witherspoon’s team got their hands on it and changed Stapley’s life. Stapley spoke to me about her life pre- and post-Reese, the upcoming Hello Sunshine–helmed Apple TV+ adaptation of Lucky starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and how publishing is like the claw machine at the grocery store.

Emily: How were you feeling about your career before you got picked by Reese?

Marissa: I was really very concerned about my publishing career. I'm not someone who was once a lawyer and now I'm an author. I was a newspaper reporter, and now I'm a writer. I tried to apply to graduate school and become a librarian at one point because I couldn't think of anything else to do when things weren't going well. Then in October of 2021, I had a request from my agent to go out for dinner and celebrate the release of Lucky, which had been April, kind of mid-pandemic here. I thought it was weird because it hadn't sold that well. So I went to the restaurant, and as I was arriving, I saw that my editor was there as well. I started to panic, thinking, It must be bad news. I girded my loins to go sit at this table.

Then they had Champagne waiting, and still I was like, Oh, God, my agent's softening the blow. She knows I love Champagne. It was only when my agent, who is also a dear friend, took out her phone and started recording as my editor began to tell me that I thought, Okay, this can't be bad news because only a monster would record someone's reaction to horrible news.

I was so completely shocked. I heard the words, and I was like, "What? I'm the December Reese's pick?” I know because I have the recording that I immediately burst into tears. I felt like, Okay, everything's going to be okay now. My agent and editor were like, "Everything will change for you. What you've been fighting for, you're going to get it." And as a Canadian author especially, it was so huge. 

 Emily: What had your experience been like with your other novels? 

Marissa: As a mid-career author, I've been through it. I was fighting really hard for my place in the industry. It’s sort of incredible to me to think this is the kind of thing it takes, almost like a lottery win, to move the needle for you. It's tough out there.

My first novel, Mating for Life, came out 13 years ago. I got an offer, flew myself to New York City to meet my editor, stars in my eyes thinking there'd be a welcoming committee. I found out later there was a signing wall in the publisher's office that I was never even asked to sign. It was the beginning of being disillusioned.

My editor was there, but nobody else was really around except for the VP of sales and marketing. So he sat down at his desk, and he was like, "Wow, congratulations." And I was waiting for whatever amazing thing he was going to tell me about my imminent success. And he was like, "We really hope your book does well, but we never know." I was like, "What is happening?" And he said, "You know the claw machine in grocery stores? The publishing industry is kind of like that. We can put all our money and time and effort behind a certain book banking on the fact that it'll do well, but then claw decides to pick up The Shack." [The Shack is a self-published Christian novel about a man whose daughter has been murdered and who is comforted by God in the form of a wise Black woman.]

I was like, "Holy shit. Nobody knows. Nobody knows." And I don't feel like that has changed. There can be certain cases where you see that the machine has created a hit, but it seems increasingly that even with these book-club picks, you can't control the claw. That makes it even more completely bananas that I didn’t stand up and walk out of that office and go and become a librarian. I mean, ultimately I'm glad I didn't, but it's a very precarious thing to throw everything you have into.

And I really did, pardon the pun, get lucky. There are some people who might get 20 chances with the claw, whereas somebody else might get one or even none, right? There is money that goes behind certain books. I do think Lucky's an outlier in a lot of ways. December 7 is not a nice pub date. It's not like, "We think this is going to be a real hit." It's like, "Oh, let's throw it into the calendar." 

My professional life has changed completely. I wrote Lucky when my mom was dying from cancer and it was a horrible time, and it was the pandemic, and having this happen with this book, it's actually helped me grieve my mom better and feel her close. It's just made so many beautiful differences in my life that I'm forever grateful for, while also being completely mystified and even a little bit terrified of the capriciousness of publishing as an industry.

 Emily: It is the claw, but you can control the claw a little bit more than you can in the grocery store. For example, the people who read for the big four clubs have a ton of influence over the entire industry. 

Marissa: But I don't think you can influence them. I keep getting asked, "How did your agent do that?" And she didn't. It just so happened that someone somewhere loved the book and passed it to Reese. 

 Emily: So you found out at that dinner with the Champagne and then did you have to keep it a secret for a certain amount of time?

 Marissa: I had to keep it a secret for three months, and that was really hard. People, when I finally told them, were like, "I thought you just didn't like me anymore." I couldn't see people because if I had a glass of wine and somebody asked me how I was, I'd be like, "I have to leave now." The club had said to me, "Don't even tell your kids because they're teenagers." But I did, and my kids were like, "Who's Reese Witherspoon?" 

Emily: I've talked to a lot of people who had their debut novels picked by a big book club. I imagine that could be a very disorienting first experience of publishing a book. After that, some authors have described feeling a sense of, "What do I do now? Where do I go from here?" I mean, it's a good problem to have, but it's still a real problem.

Marissa: I couldn't imagine it being my debut. I'm glad it wasn't. We do talk about the curse of the big book club, and your next book after is just — it's not going to be a hit. 

Emily: What was your advance for Lucky? 

Marissa: I don't think I can tell you because it's just embarrassing.

 Emily: Can you tell me if it's earned out the advance?

Marissa: In the blink of an eye. It was very low.

Emily: So do you have a sense of what the sales of Lucky have been like? Again, ballpark is fine.

Marissa: I think it's a few hundred thousand or that kind of thing, so it's not like a million copies, but that's still quite a few copies for me. And certainly would earn out any pretty high advance.

 Emily: How involved have you been with the TV show?

Marissa: I've had almost all of my books except for my debut optioned, so I know how hard it is to actually get something made. The author's involvement can be a blessing, but it can also be a curse. With Hello Sunshine, they're very cautious. I'm a producer, and they certainly take everything that I say very seriously. I remember in one of our initial conversations, they were like, "Well, who do you see as Lucky?" And I was like, "Anya Taylor-Joy." They listen, and they are excited about your vision. It feels sort of fairy-godmother-ish.

Emily: So we talked a little bit about the “post-pick curse.” What’s it been like publishing your more recent books? 

 Marissa: I published what I definitely feel is my best novel after Lucky, and have spoken to other picks who were like, "Yeah, I published my best novel afterwards too." I feel sort of flummoxed by the way The Lightning Bottles has kind of flown under the radar.

I still feel hopeful because it got optioned for a TV series, and I think books can have a long tail. But it certainly wasn't a sure thing for it to be a big hit after Lucky, and I know I'm not alone in that. I spoke to a very successful New York Times best-selling author who said, "If there's one thing that you can be sure of after a huge hit is that your next book will not be as successful." Which is just another way things work with publishing. But I've been up and down the roller coaster enough times that I know that there's another hill coming, so I'm okay.

Emily: Just for yourself, for your own personal sense of gratification around it, the fact that you feel that it's your best novel is worth a lot. 

Marissa: When I was told Lucky was a Reese's Pick, my first thought was, Oh my God, I get to write The Lightning Bottles. I was at such a low point in my career that I was thinking, no one is going to buy my next novel. 

That's probably why I haven't gotten all “woe is me” about it not being as huge of a success as Lucky. I got to do it, and what I'm working on next is, I think, equal to Lucky. I said to my husband the other day, "I have to remember, of course, we do this for the money because we need to pay our mortgage and put our kids through university, but I don't do it only for the money. I do it for love." And so I get to keep doing this thing that I love, that is the thing that I'm good at, and it is a lucky thing. I know I keep using that word, but it's true.

 Read more about celebrity book clubs in the Cut’s February Fashion issue and online later this week! 

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Photo-illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Curtis Sittenfeld

When Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel, Prep, was published in 2005, the Times named it one of its top-five books of the year, and it sold around 470,000 copies in hardcover and paperback in its first two years on the market. Its genius cover, featuring a pink-and-green grosgrain ribbon belt, was ubiquitous in the hands of subway riders as I commuted to my publishing job. I was 24 and thought I was too cool for “chick lit,” but curiosity eventually got the better of me. What I found in Prep was a novel that combined so many of my favorite novelistic tropes, it was like opening an overstuffed box of candy. An outsider from the hinterlands enters a rarefied world (The Great Gatsby, The Secret History). Immersively realistic depictions of what first love/lust feels like and what it’s like to have it, improbably and secretly, reciprocated (Call Me by Your Name). The exquisite pleasure of feeling like the rituals and secrets of an intimate closed society are being revealed to you (Harry Potter, Gaudy Night). Blossoming sexuality stifled by heartbreak and crushing humiliation (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Days of Abandonment). In 2018, Entertainment Weekly published a reassessment that called Prep a “cult classic.” It was also a sleeper hit, as Sittenfeld revealed in that article: “I didn’t understand that it’s very unusual for a debut novel that received a $40,000 advance to become a best seller,” she said.

Now, 20 years and six books later, Sittenfeld’s written a new story catching up with Prep’s characters, now in their 40s, in her collection Show Don’t Tell, out next week. What sort of person has her heroine, Lee Fiora, become? Will she reconnect with her first love, the perfectly named compelling asshole Cross Sugarman? Ahead of the book’s release, we asked Prep fans to speculate … 

“I've always thought that Lee would eventually get a dramatic Liz Lemon–style comeuppance at her Ault reunion, in which her would-be hot rich bullies would confront her for being her own kind of mean girl (though she already somewhat gets it by the end of Prep). I imagine Lee writing an exposé during the height of Me Too about Ault that largely goes viral for its headline, ‘Fish or Cheese?,’ and ‘Fish or Cheese’ gets optioned into a Mindy Kaling–produced sitcom about Ault that only lasts one season but does enough to make Lee a pariah at the reunion. And Cross works in fintech.” — Bridget Read, features writer 

“Cross Sugarman — I haven't heard that name in years (drags cigarette ...). I hope that's how Lee enters her 25-year Ault reunion — emergency cigarette on hand and a bottle of some form of anti-anxiety medicine because she cannot cry on campus again. Time has hardened sweet, innocent Lee. After graduating from the University of Michigan, she stays in touch with some of her girlfriends from the dorms, but like many of us, she'll form a completely new life in New York. NYC had chewed her up and spit her out in her 20s (who knew dating and being broke in Manhattan was so hard?), so she moves to the West Coast and lands in Washington, where she marries a passive hipster who works at Microsoft. She’s well off, but unhappy, because she never got to find a creative outlet for herself and all her youthful anxious energy. She has one daughter and she wants to send her to Ault, but wants to tell her all her stories first as both an endorsement and a warning. (Talking about her time at Ault makes her want to write a book about it.) Coincidentally, Cross's kids are also planning on going to Ault. He suggests that they set up a trip for them to visit the school again with their kids. Lee says yes but knows it isn't going to happen. It was just fun for her to pretend for a little.” —Morgan Baila, senior news editor, Vulture

“Lee Fiora has totally moved on from Ault and frankly considers not going to her reunion at all; a surprisingly sweet email from her former roommate, Martha, with whom she’d all but lost touch, convinces her to show up. She and Martha kind of talk past one another at an awkward lunch before the big event, and at the reunion itself, she has too much wine and says too much to a random semi-stranger about how much she’s over Cross. (Which she is! Her life is great now that she knows where she’s always belonged.) Hung-over on the flight home to her amazing kids, she opens the novel she’s reading for her book club, and, as the story concludes, we see that she’s been holding her page with a grosgrain ribbon.” —Daniel D’Addario, author of The Talent

WHAT TO READ

Crush, by Ada Calhoun: Initially easy to dismiss as a heterosexual All Fours, this story of how an unnamed narrator who shares lots of biographical details with Calhoun (East Village upbringing, withholding famous writer father) opened her marriage at the seams when her husband allowed her to just kiss other men, then found herself madly in love with a religion professor with whom she intensely corresponded about every book ever written about love, turns out to be kind of deep and thought-provoking, with hot sex scenes. Buy. —Emily Gould

The Strange Case of Jane O., by Karen Thompson Walker: A speculative mystery about a new mother who, according to the psychiatrist whose journals make up a majority of the novel, seems to be struggling with an episode of dissociative fugue after she disappears and wakes up days later with no memory whatsoever. Library Hold. —Ashley Wolfgang, newsletter editor

Theory & Practice, by Michelle de Kretser: Intelligent, stylish, and surprising, Michelle de Kretser's novel follows a Sri Lankan graduate student in Melbourne reckoning with an unexpected discovery about her favorite writer and subject, Virginia Woolf. Library Hold. —Jasmine Vojdani, newsletter editor

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