The Friday Night Knitting Club
by Kate Jacobs

List Price: $14.00
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780425219096
Publisher: Berkley

Kate Jacobs left her native Canada to earn a graduate degree at New York University – and made her home in Manhattan for a decade, where she worked at Redbook, Working Woman, Family Life, and LifetimeTV.com. Currently, she lives in Southern California with her husband.

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Q: Knitting is so popular all of a sudden. What do you think is behind the new trend?

KJ: From teens to college students to career women to new moms, there’s just this whole group of people out there who are embracing the world of “granny chic.” Part of it is irony, part of it nostalgia for some imagined “good old days.” Plus knitting is the kind of activity that brings people together. We all want friendship. That community-building aspect is huge; one result is the boom in knitting blogs on the Internet. But there’s another part of it too. I think there is a very real therapeutic value to knitting, something so soothing and stress-relieving about the craft. You can keep your hands busy – a good thing for folks who are so keyed up that relaxing doesn’t come naturally – and just let your mind go to mush. Now, I’m not saying that knitting doesn’t require thought. It does! Some of the patterns are really quite intricate and you have to be what I call “granny-good” to do them well. But it uses a different part of the brain than when you’re at work. Your fingers just start and you repeat the steps – there’s a lot of muscle memory – and the needles click clack and you can just feel the tension in your brain unwind.

Finally, we all like to own things that make us feel good. Handmade and homemade items are popular. Made by your very own hands? Well, that’s the ultimate.
Q: Are you a knitter?

KJ: Yes – and I’m all about quick, fun projects! When I knit it’s about taking a break – typically from writing– and I’m quite likely to please my inner child by making a bookmark in hot pink or to knit up an item that I don’t really need, like a cell phone sock. (After all, my phone doesn’t actually get cold and my handbag already has an inside pocket.) Knitting is just a fun hobby. Both of my grandmothers, on the other hand, were excellent knitters who put together items that were meant to be warm and long-lasting: afghans, sweaters, baby clothes. Even now, on the end of my bed, I still have a green-and-yellow afghan that my Grandma must have made over 30 years ago. There is something beautiful about tucking a blanket around your feet that isn’t just something that’s been in the family for years, but is something that was literally stitched together, with love, by someone who loved you. That’s powerful stuff.
Q: Were parts of your own life an inspiration as you wrote the novel?

KJ: To me, THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB is really a novel about relationships; knitting serves as a metaphor and the club as a conduit to bring together this disparate group of women. And I think that when you’re in a city as big and as busy as New York, it can be very easy to get lost in the crowd. The shop becomes, for each of the characters, a place of calm. They know they can just take a deep breath and let it all out. We all need a place like that, a group of chums who are in your corner. And so I was able to draw on some very rich personal experiences because I’ve been very lucky in my own life to have those kinds of friends. I’m still close with the same group of girls I met in first grade, for example. And I’m still close to the same bunch of women I met at my very first job, and we’ve been having regular girls’ night get-togethers for almost ten years now. It’s getting harder because we live all over the country, but we still make it a priority to find weekends and get together. Why? Because true friendship is a rare thing, and something worth cherishing. So I drew on this wealth of relationships, the memory of my knitting grandmothers, and my love of New York to build this wonderful world at the Walker and Daughter knitting shop.
Q: Are you a born-and-bred New Yorker?

KJ: Born? No, I am originally from a small town in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. I feel a strong sense of identity about where I grew up and only came to New York in my early twenties. But bred? Yes. And by that I mean that I spent my formative adult years in the city: I finished grad school, landed my first full-time job, met the man who is now my husband. Those are highlights; all New Yorkers have lived through low times, from bad relationships to cramped living quarters to the experience of 9/11. And those are the times that define you, that make you feel an overwhelming connection to the city. I love New York, I feel comfortable there. It’s home.
Q: Is your heroine, Georgia Walker, modeled after you or someone you know?

KJ: The short answer is no. The longer and more thoughtful answer is that I understand the tendency to assume that novels, especially first novels, are semi-autobiographical. And I wonder the same types of things when I read works by other writers! But that’s not the case here. Okay, wait, there is one thing: my great-grandmother was from Scotland. And I do have a strong fondness for shortbread. But other than that, Georgia’s story is truly her own, whether it’s how she approaches relationships, runs her business, stands up for herself. And though I can mine my own life for emotions, my life experiences don’t match up with Georgia’s – she’s a mom, she’s a way better knitter than I am, she grew up on a farm.

As for modeling Georgia on someone I know, I’m afraid I didn’t do that, either. I was greatly flattered when one of my husband’s older sisters, who happens to be a single mom, told me that what I’d written about Georgia resonated with her. But that sister-in-law is also completely different from Georgia. When I think of the things that I like most about the character of Georgia – she’s strong, she’s intelligent, she’s courageous, she’s loving, she’s flawed – I realize I could take any one of those qualities and it would apply to many of my friends or family members. I simply created a character that I would like to get to know myself.
Q: Did you base the loving, yet tumultuous relationship between Georgia and her daughter, Dakota, on your own family experience?

KJ: There’s lots of family turmoil throughout the book, and that’s just real life, I think. Where there is great love there can be great intensity. I certainly have never had a foot fight on the couch with my mother, I can assure you. Those were the games I played with my older sister. But I imagined there might be some of that type of sibling closeness after having a baby so young. And as for their arguments... didn’t we all have fights with our moms in those tween and teen years? Of course we did. I do remember always wanting my space when I was Dakota’s age and my mom insisting that I go downstairs to join the family and “have conversation.” This was impossible, of course, since I was terribly misunderstood. Which I say with tongue firmly in cheek. So yes, I have been a girl and I was able to use the emotions of those experiences as a jumping-off point.
Q: You handle the interracial issues in your novel with great sensitivity. Are there interracial relationships in your family?

KJ: No, though I certainly tried to approach each and every character’s story with sensitivity and some character’s stories included aspects about race. There is definitely a school of thought that advises “write what you know.” And it’s probably obvious that I don’t subscribe to that philosophy since I’m not a white man or a black man, nor am I a biracial adolescent, an Asian-American newlywed, a 72-year-old Jewish widow, a single mom, and so on. None of the characters are me and I am none of the characters. But I am a person, with my own unique triumphs and challenges. As a writer, I see myself as a storyteller, and I approach everything that I write from a place of trying to understand emotions and how people relate to each other. What motivates the character, makes them compelling and appealing. It is one thing to write an experience, quite another to claim you have captured the experience. And what I do know is that the New York I lived in was very much a colorful canvas and I wanted the novel to reflect that.
Q: Are the rest of your characters based on real friends of yours?

KJ: It’s funny, but some people in my life were really hoping to see themselves immortalized in print. Maybe in another book! But it didn’t happen here. Certainly there are some instances in my personal life that helped inform how the characters reacted to certain situations – for instance, a dear friend from high school and I fell out of touch. So I know what it’s like to miss someone deeply, in the way that Cat and Georgia recognized, somewhat belatedly, the worth of true friendship. But there wasn’t the same level of drama in my own life, thankfully, and we reconnected years later in a very low-key way. (We picked up the phone.) All that said, I sprinkled little bits of myself into some of the characters, and the people who truly know me well recognized the places in which I did that. Let me just say that Darwin’s concerns about the effects of domesticity were not a stretch. And there is a scene in which Dakota shares a life lesson from her mom with Cat and tells her to “be your own safety and security.” Well, that’s good advice, isn’t it? One of my brothers told me that when I was 17 and heading off to university and I’ve never forgotten it.
Q: Was it difficult to go from magazine writing to writing a novel?

KJ: Yes and no. On the one hand, my career has been in women’s magazines and I’ve made it a priority to focus on content that’s relevant to women. So this novel really fit in with my background. But on the other hand, the sheer scope of writing a novel was so new. A magazine article commonly clocks in around 2,000 words whereas the final word count of the book is close to 120,000! There were moments when I was knee-deep in the story and I wondered if I’d ever come out from under it. At other times, the freedom to explore and just follow the characters where they would lead without worrying about running out of space was positively exhilarating. I would just write and write until I felt done – and that was a luxury I’d never really had before. The other thrill is that I was able to write in my own voice. I didn’t have to weave in expert quotes and helpful hints as in an article. I could just have at it and sneak in all sorts of my personal philosophies, from women’s roles in society to the worthiness of being true to oneself to the power of women’s friendships. My eldest brother told me he could really hear my voice when he read the book, and I think that’s a good thing.
Q: Have you already received any responses from the website at WalkerandDaughter.com?

KJ: I’m really eager to see how readers are going to react to the site – I’ve had a few people tell me that it seems too much like a real store! But then that was part of the intent, to continue the world of Walker and Daughter and create a place where readers can meet and talk about knitting or just anything at all, really. We don’t all have the luxury of having a place to go, or, even if we do belong to some type of book club or craft club, just having the free time to show up regularly. Life gets so busy, doesn’t it? So I’m hoping that the website can be a place of community, a fun little getaway that is open 24/7. And I certainly plan to log on and join in the chatter!
Q: If you get a movie deal for this book, what actors would be your first choices to play Georgia, Dakota and James?

KJ: Well, first of all, I’d be thrilled to see the novel turned into a movie. I had such strong visuals in my mind as I wrote, from Granny’s teacups to Georgia’s shabby furniture to the colorful yarns at Walker and Daughter, and I’d be fascinated to see what a director would take from the book to create their vision. Personally, I think that each character would translate well to the screen, and I could imagine a wonderful ensemble cast really bringing the book to life. Of course, I’d love for Julia Roberts to play Georgia, which is probably apparent from the funny little scene I wrote in which a film student comes into the shop looking for her. And that scene was written long before any chapters were sent to Hollywood! As for Dakota and James, I think it’s all about chemistry between actors. Once Georgia is cast, the rest would fall into place.
Q: Are you already working on your next novel?

KJ: Yes, I am. For me, it’s all about the process. So you won’t get me to talk about the storyline for my next novel just yet! That’s because so much changes for me as I write; an idea is just a spark and characters do and say things I didn’t plan and don’t expect. It may seem ridiculous that imaginary characters have independence. But in some ways they do. Have you ever been in a real-life conversation that became passionate and you found yourself wondering how you got from where it started to where it ended up? Well, for me, writing can be like that, if I’m honestly following the characters where they want to take me. A concept for a novel is merely a starting point and the journey to finishing a book is a long and creative one indeed. Sure, I have what I call my road map, which is an overview, character bios, and chapter-by-chapter outlines. But that road map requires constant revision as I can’t always see the twists and turns up ahead. Another significant, and just as crucial, part of my process is that I simply can’t talk about a story during the writing of it. I have to be quiet. Too much talk and it doesn’t get to the page!


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Excerpted from The Friday Night Knitting Club © Copyright 2008 by Kate Jacobs. Reprinted with permission by Berkley . All rights reserved.

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