Quick answer: Meg Wolitzer’s 2013 novel The Interestings sparked a creative reset for Sara Bareilles — it inspired the musical she is actively composing, influenced the tone of her album Good Grief, and helped shape how she thinks about grief, fertility, and presence.
New angle: A novel as a creative key
Instead of focusing only on Bareilles’s résumé, this piece centers on the moment a single book opened an artistic door. For an artist who has moved between pop charts and Broadway, The Interestings arrived not as another option but as a new language to write in.
Where to watch the full conversation
Watch the full interview on YouTube: Books That Changed My Life — Sara Bareilles. For the official channel, visit the Books That Changed My Life YouTube Channel.
What the book is and why it mattered
About the source material: Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings (2013) follows six friends who meet at an arts summer camp in the 1970s and traces their lives across four decades, exploring talent, class, luck, and the ways ambition shifts over time. The novel’s central figure, Jules Jacobson, embodies longing, self-doubt, and the ache to be seen as “interesting.”
Bareilles says the novel’s portrait of ambition and quiet suffering resonated with her own creative questions and eventually became the seed for a stage adaptation that she’s composing with Wolitzer and a theatrical director.
How the adaptation came together
After a decade since her Broadway debut with Waitress, Bareilles was open to new projects but hadn’t found the right story. Receiving drafts and suggestions didn’t spark the same response as picking up Wolitzer’s book. That moment of connection — when a text immediately opens a new idea of sound and structure — is exactly what led her to write an entirely new score for the official stage musical.
Personal impact: grief, fertility, and mental-health clarity
Beyond the professional leap, Bareilles found The Interestings reflecting her inner life. She has long experienced anxiety, empathy, and episodes of depression; the novel gave language to those sensitivities. In her conversation she also shared that starting Lexapro in her mid-40s felt like a major turning point for managing anxiety and clarity — a medical detail she openly connected to living more fully in the present.
Fertility struggles and the surrender that comes with uncertain outcomes informed the emotional landscape of her album Good Grief, which was recorded largely at Dreamland Studios in upstate New York. The record translates personal loss — from failed expectations to the death of friends — into songs that look toward healing rather than avoidance.
Character focus: Jules and the idea of “enough”
Bareilles names Jules Jacobson as the character she most identifies with: someone who is awkward, hopeful, and often measuring herself against others. Rather than viewing Jules’s turn away from acting as a failure, Bareilles sees that arc as a portrait of brave self-acceptance — the recognition that ordinary existence can itself be sufficient.
Key takeaways from the interview
- Presence over control: Accepting loss and mortality can free you to inhabit the present instead of endlessly planning for an imagined future.
- Worth without spectacle: Authentic value does not require constant proof of being remarkable — simple, steady being has its own power.
- Grief braided with love: As Bareilles puts it, “Great love and great loss are just… they’re braided together. But they are. They are one.” Processing loss is entwined with processing love.
Where to hear more
Listen to the full interview and related conversations on the Books That Changed My Life website, on Spotify, or via the official podcast directory: YouTube Music playlist.
About Sara Bareilles
Sara Bareilles is a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and actress, known for hits like “Love Song” and “Brave.” She earned Tony and Grammy nominations for composing the score to the Broadway musical Waitress, and has appeared on the series Girls5eva. She is now composing the score for the stage adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings.
Related reading and purchase link
Read or buy Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings here: The Interestings — Walmart. For more about Sara, visit sarabmusic.com.
FAQ
Q: Which book inspired Sara Bareilles’s upcoming stage musical?
A: Meg Wolitzer’s novel The Interestings (published in 2013) is the source text Bareilles has chosen to adapt for the stage.
Q: Which character in The Interestings does Sara Bareilles relate to most?
A: Bareilles says she connects most with Jules Jacobson — a character marked by awkwardness, self-doubt, and an earnest desire to be seen as interesting.
Q: What is the title of Sara Bareilles’s album that explores personal loss?
A: The album is called Good Grief, and much of it was recorded at Dreamland Studios in upstate New York.
Q: What practical advice does Sara Bareilles offer artists about backup plans?
A: Her recommendation is pragmatic: keep doing creative work while using flexible or odd jobs to cover living expenses, rather than giving up your artistic aims when money gets tight.
Final reflection
Sara Bareilles’s conversation about The Interestings shows how a single novel can change not just a project but an artist’s emotional framework. For creators and readers alike, the lesson is to remain open: the right story at the right time can shift both craft and life.
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