Karen asked Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney:

I thoroughly enjoyed your novel, and I look forward to the next! How did you decide to write about this topic? It certainly is universal and with interesting characters.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney Hi, Karen. I've always been fascinated by adult sibling relationships. I grew up in a very Irish-Italian Catholic community and so I was surrounded by people who had 6 or 7 or 10 (!) kids in their families. I'm the oldest of 4 and I thought our family was small. As soon as I started writing fiction, I knew I wanted to write about adult siblings because those relationships are so interesting and complicated, especially as everyone gets older -- that's the tiny seed of interest that became The Nest. Once I knew I was writing about siblings who were not getting along, I needed to figure out why and money was the obvious answer! It's more universal than I ever realized while I was writing the book. I hear a lot of stories now about family arguments over money.

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