Solow, Jennifer 1965(?)-

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Solow, Jennifer 1965(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1965, in Pittsburgh, PA; daughter of Donald (an architect) and Nan Solow (a teacher); children: Griffin, Talullah. Education: Rhode Island School of Design, graduated.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Mill Valley, CA. Agent—Jennifer Joel, International Creative Management, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, San Francisco, CA, creative director/managing partner, until 2001; writer, 2001—; former editor, Core; also former art director, Deutsch Advertising.

WRITINGS:

The Booster (novel), Atria Books (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Former advertising executive Jennifer Solow's first novel, The Booster, tells the tale of a well-to-do professional woman named Jillian Siegal, who turns into a professional criminal. "She gets fired from her advertising job, does drugs, breaks up with her boyfriend and becomes involved in an international shoplifting ring," explained Elisa Lipsky-Karasz in WWD. "Her fall from grace isn't pretty to watch, nor is she even that likeable, but it makes for fun reading—especially for anyone who's sick of tomes with pastel book jackets."

Critics speculated on the question of how much—if any—of the novel is based on Solow's own experiences. Jillian Siegal, like her creator, is a former advertising executive. "Like her protagonist, the writer is stylistically confused," declared Cristina Rouvalis in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "buying both Armani and strip shop get-ups, vintage Pucci and Jean Muir dress, outfits from Patricia Fields in New York, the costumer for Sex and the City. "But "the descriptions of purloined scarves and blouses worth hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars are works of imagination," Regis Behe explained in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "Solow has never shoplifted—unless you count a youthful indiscretion." "It's a tribute to Solow's research and writing," Behe concluded, "that a reader thinks she must have some insider knowledge of shoplifting." Solow's "spectacular debut," a Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded, "sounds a warning to fashionista shopaholics."

Solow told CA: "In 2001 my life took a monumental turn. Stuck in downtown New York City in a business meeting the morning of September 11th, I had one of those moments—the kind where everything slows down, the camera pulls out and the main character wonders: Is this all there is?

"At the pinnacle of my advertising career and with two young children at home, I decided to trade it all in, get rid of the television and write a novel. Three years later, a day shy of my fortieth birthday, I accomplished what I set out to do. And I'm still going!

"I think the writer who's had the most influence on me is, oddly, Dr. Suess. I learned everything there is to know about writing listening to my mother read to me—the brilliant rhythms and fantastical worlds of Dr. Suess got imbedded in my DNA."