I never thought it was weird that my cats read so many books. They, these two sisters—Uni and Chloe—came from humble beginnings: the rafters of a garage in central New Jersey. When I brought them home to my apartment, all they wanted to do, for years, was talk about books: whisper amongst themselves and twiddle their whiskers as they described something or other as so meta. I decided to broaden their horizons with contemporary literature, and tease them with new options. My bookshelves, after all, were their only real portal to the wider, human world. They learned to love genre novels without scoffing. They started to lighten up, to realize that entertainment and erudition are not mutually exclusive. 

And then I delivered Meg Wolitzer to them. The way their dim little eyes lit up at her work! They cried and chortled and whimpered their way through her back catalog, reading tales of tragically self-deprecating overweight stand-up comics, unrecognized and heroic wives, doubtful mothers—a brave and complex and hilarious world of women. When The Female Persuasion arrived I had to buy two copies; they couldn’t keep their damn paws off of it.    

And oh, how they wanted to talk to the author: the new feelings, the foreign sensations. I was too busy (making money, as someonemust), but I rejuvenated a few old contacts and inquired if Ms. Wolitzer might have the time for a quick conversation with these curious cats. Graciously, she agreed. I helped wrangle my girls’ frantic ramblings into something suitable for email, edited for clarity and broken up to reflect when they took pauses to play in the sunshine.

—Scott Indrisek

I. Pure Scrabble

UNI & CHLOE: We keep trying to write some short stories ourselves, and sadly, it’s not going so well. We start, we stop, we take a nap. The Female Persuasion is a long, involved novel, so you must have a pretty good work ethic. To make us feel better, can you share some experiences you’ve had in terms of getting stuck, as a writer? How did you get unstuck?

MEG WOLITZER: It’s not so much that I get stuck all that often, but that I just can’t bear to work. I mean, it just sickens me sometimes. So what I do is watch an episode of the Danish political TV series Borgen, which is completely involving. You, obviously, don’t watch Scandinavian television.

U & C: No, but we’re unrepentant Law & Order: SVU superfans.

MW: Maybe, when you get stuck in your own work, you could clean yourselves?

U & C: Fair enough. Many of your novels are about the struggles of women, the invisibility of women, the perseverance of women....