By the time she was twenty-eight, Meg Wolitzer had published three widely-acclaimed novels and two books for young readers. A fascination with adolescence is a common thread running through all of her early work. Critics have pronounced her "the chronicler of her generation," a label Wolitzer resists as too confining.

"I was born in Brooklyn, but raised on Long Island in a typical suburban town. What was atypical about my experience was that my mother was writing and had a life outside suburban confines. My friends were creative and artistically active, writing and staging plays. My best friend in high school and I had a radio show called 'Curtains Up,' in which we'd act out all sorts of scenes from classic plays. The two of us would do all the parts, switching from female to male, young to old, whatever was needed. I was also the editor...