Granted, she’s not done with writing broadly—Hilderbrand is working on a two-book series with her daughter, Shelby Cunningham, based on her experiences at a northeast boarding school, and from there, who knows?
Glamour talked to Hilderbrand about her impressive career, her explosive fandom, and why Nantucket is the love of her life.
Glamour: Your Nantucket novels, for so many of us, have been the literal fabric of our summers. How did you decide it’s time for your—sorry for the pun—swan song?
Elin Hilderbrand: Honestly, I wanted to retire three years ago, in 2021 with Golden Girl. I felt like I was coming to the end of my natural material, and writing novels got harder and harder. I didn’t really have any good ideas. Golden Girl felt like an ending because the writer dies. But my publisher really wanted a new contract. At that point I’d just delivered 28 Summers, which I thought was one of my best novels. They really were very persuasive. Well, they wanted a four-book deal. There was no chance. I asked for a two-book deal. I sort of had an idea for another novel about a hotel and then I wanted to write a women’s friendship novel, which ended up being The Five-Star Weekend. I didn’t have a final idea. We decided to do three books, and I thought, Okay, let’s hope I get another idea. I wanted it to be an ending to the Nantucket-based novels. So I came up with the plot of Swan Song.
It’s such a fun read, seeing old characters come back. How did you map out this final Nantucket book?
I wanted the Chief to come back, and a mysterious crime to involve him and his family, because I always feel like that’s a good device. This time it’s personal, so I decided I’d bring back the castaways just because I loved them so much. The Castaways was a book where I realized that creating a Nantucket world was working. That’s the first book where the Chief appears and really, I love that novel. Blonde Sharon has been in my last few books, so I brought her back. And Fast Eddie. I wanted to write a novel about a couple who move to Nantucket and then start to take over Nantucket society and how the established people in that society feel about it. I thought the best way to do that is to use people that I’ve already created.
Are your characters inspired by people you see living on Nantucket?
I love Nantucket so much. It’s the love of my life. I go to the specialty grocery store once a week to get one or two things. Today I saw a woman in front of me who had full on done her grocery shopping there, which, I could see over her shoulder, was like $875. For, I don’t know, two or three bags of groceries. I’m like, Holy shit, that is the kind of person that lives in my novels. Not a main character, but the quintessential sort of summer person who comes and literally does not care how much anything costs because they have unlimited sums of money. I was laughing, like, Okay, so that’s a character straight out of my book.
Read the full article here
