The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits

NYT bestselling author Jennifer Weiner explores whether fame is worth the price

By Ellen Miller | April 5, 2025

Jennifer Weiner was on a vacation with her husband in Alaska when she had the vision that sparked her new book. “We were talking to lots of people, eavesdropping on conversations,” she remembers. “I got this image in my head of a woman wearing a giant puffy parka and carrying cleaning supplies.”

That woman became Cassie, one of the main characters in her latest novel, The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits.

“When we were on vacation, I kept thinking about this idea that people had left a version of themselves behind them somewhere,” says Weiner. “At the same time, we were staying in Airbnbs and I was intrigued by this idea: Here’s a code or a text, and you’ll never see the host. I had this picture of this woman in a giant puffy parka with the hood up, carrying the cleaning supplies to clean the Airbnb. Who is she? What happened to her? What brought her to this place?” she says.

Those questions began to build the backstory for Cassie, whose life in Alaska is nothing like the life in the spotlight she led 20-some years ago. The book, out April 8, tells the story of “the complicated ties between two sisters, the tragedy that divides them, and the power of love and forgiveness” across the decades, all set within the glamorous—and grueling—world of pop music.

Join the National Writers Series (NWS) on Wednesday, April 9, as Weiner takes the stage at the City Opera House in Traverse City to talk about women, sisterhood, fame, and more.

When Past and Present Collide

Here’s the premise: Eighteen-year-old Cherry wants nothing more than to be a singer and can’t understand why her mom, Zoe, is so against her pursuit of music. So Cherry packs a bag and disappears, planning to win her way to stardom by competing on a reality show. Her determination carries her to Alaska to meet Cassie, the character that Weiner originally envisioned on her trip.

The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits follows Cherry’s time on the reality show contrasted to the early journey of The Griffin Sisters, a musical duo of Zoe and Cassie (yes, that Cassie) Grossberg, updated with a cool new last name. The book traverses Philadelphia, where Weiner lives, Detroit, and Alaska.

“I’ve lived in Philly for more than 30 years, and I really love the city,” says Weiner. “I love celebrating it especially in the songs in the book… ‘Last Night in Fishtown,’ I had a good time with that.’”

While Weiner loves a Philly shoutout, she also pulled inspiration from locations she had traveled to flesh out the other settings in the book.

“My parents were both from Detroit, and I have family in the area; I know Detroit pretty well,” she says. “I actually stayed in the hotel where the scene that opens the book takes place in, so when I was writing it I was imagining it specifically: the room, the building. Then in Alaska, I was just captured by this idea of how far can you go when you’re trying to run away from something. The truth is that wherever you go, there you are. You don’t become a new person.”

Turning Fact into Fiction

For Weiner, her settings are characters unto themselves. “Place is really important for books,” she adds. “I’m not the biggest visual thinker. I don’t always know what my characters look like, but I know where they live.”

That attention to detail is evident in her writing; in this novel, hyper-specific Philadelphia references include Might Bread Company, a bakery near Passyunk Square, and the School of Rock, where her own daughter attended classes. Those details were shaped by Weiner’s early introductions to the craft of writing, both in school and then as a young journalist.

“I was a creative writing student in college, an English major. But nobody hires a debut novelist!” she laughs. “I tried to find somebody. I went to my parents and asked, ‘Would either of you be interested in being a patron of the arts?’”

Weiner’s youthful ambition is both humorous in hindsight and relatable to anyone who has struggled to get their start in the world. Neither of her parents took her up on the offer, so like many, she was stuck getting a day job.

“I was a journalist for 10 years before my first novel was published,” she says. “I got a job at a newspaper, and one of my jobs was typing in the school lunch menus. Typing ‘hot dog in bun, your choice of skim or chocolate milk’... boy, this will really knock the F. Scott Fitzgerald out of you!”

It might not have been the writing practice she dreamed about, but Weiner credits her time as a journalist for shaping her skills today.

“It made me very unsentimental about my work,” she says. “It made me comfortable writing on deadline, and comfortable writing fast; it really taught me the idea that you can always make something better. You take edits, suggestions, notes—you can always make it better.”

Weiner says being a journalist was the “best apprenticeship” for becoming a novelist she could have had.

What Will Fame Do to You?

While the heart of the book is about sisterhood, Weiner doesn’t shy away from the gritty realities of the music industry and stardom. The book grapples with issues that famous women are forced to confront, like mental health and body image, by exploring the dynamics between Zoe and her plus-size sister Cassie and discussing the often vicious media attention the sisters received during the height of their fame.

Weiner read Britney Spears’ memoir (released in 2023) and had paid attention to the Free Britney movement.

“I had been thinking a lot about the wringer that we put young women celebrities through in the early aughts,” she reflects. “The other thing I read a lot about is bodies, women living in larger bodies. Can you be body neutral and just perceive it as the vessel that carries you through the world? We’ve interrogated some of the ways we treated Britney, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton … that cohort of celebrities, and there’s more awareness now. But yet, Ozempic. … It feels like we’re in the middle of this interesting pendulum swing.”

Since the early aughts, have things changed? “Yes,” Weiner says. Have they changed enough? “Probably not.” She hopes this book will shed more light.

“I want the things I always want for my readers, and hope for the thing I always hope for,” says Weiner. “I hope we have a little more awareness and intention of how we think about our own bodies as women and the bodies we are seeing.”

When she comes to Traverse City for her National Writers Series event the day after the book releases, Weiner is sure there will be no shortage of discussion topics.

“I think there’s a lot to talk about with this book: pop culture, sisters, mothers/daughters, and fame and what fame does to people,” she says. “It’s a really exciting moment before you send a book into the world when no one has read it but your husband and publisher. I’m excited to have these conversations.”

About the Event

An Evening with Jennifer Weiner takes place on Wednesday, April 9, at 7pm at the City Opera House in Traverse City and via livestream. Tickets range from $42.50-$52.50 (plus fees) and come with a hardcover copy of The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits. In-person tickets can be purchased through the City Opera House, and livestream tickets can be found through the links on the National Writers Series website. The guest host for the event will be Dr. Amanda Sewell, Interlochen Public Radio’s Music Director. For more information, visit nationalwritersseries.org.

Photo by Andrea Cipriani Mecchi