The Wedding
Description
After thirty years of marriage, Wilson Lewis, son-in-law of Allie and Noah Calhoun (of The Notebook), is forced to admit that the romance has gone out of his marriage. Desperate to win back his wife, Jane's, heart, he must figure out how to make her fall in love with him... again. Despite the shining example of Allie and Noah's marriage, Wilson is himself a man unable to easily express his emotions. A successful estate attorney, he has provided well for his family, but now, with his daughter's upcoming wedding, he is forced to face the fact that he and Jane have grown apart and he wonders if she even loves him anymore. Wilson is sure of one thing--his love for his wife has only deepened and intensified over the years. Now, with the memories of his in-laws' magnificent fifty-year love affair as his guide, Wilson struggles to find his way back into the heart of the woman he adores.
Did You Know
The Wedding is a follow-up to The Notebook?
The Wedding was inspired by a few unnamed couples that Nicholas knows well?
The novel is set in the North Carolina town in which Nicholas now lives?
Description
After thirty years of marriage, Wilson Lewis, son-in-law of Allie and Noah Calhoun (of The Notebook), is forced to admit that the romance has gone out of his marriage. Desperate to win back his wife, Jane's, heart, he must figure out how to make her fall in love with him... again. Despite the shining example of Allie and Noah's marriage, Wilson is himself a man unable to easily express his emotions. A successful estate attorney, he has provided well for his family, but now, with his daughter's upcoming wedding, he is forced to face the fact that he and Jane have grown apart and he wonders if she even loves him anymore. Wilson is sure of one thing--his love for his wife has only deepened and intensified over the years. Now, with the memories of his in-laws' magnificent fifty-year love affair as his guide, Wilson struggles to find his way back into the heart of the woman he adores.
Film/TV Sales
Rights held by New Line Cinema.
Background Info
The genesis of a novel is always a tricky process, and The Wedding had the longest genesis of any novel I’ve yet written, and was based on two separate ideas that had been floating around in my head for years.
The first idea was fairly obvious, and I’ve been toying around with the idea of a sequel or follow-up to The Notebook ever since the novel was published. Even now, readers still talk to me about that novel and the memories of Noah and Allie still linger in their imagination. I thought it would be fun to revisit those characters – both for myself, and for the readers – but it was easier said than done because I hadn’t originally written The Notebook with the intent of a sequel in mind. For those who’ve read the novel – and know how it ends – you’ll understand this point, and frankly, I didn’t know where to take the story after the final scene. None of my ideas for the “sequel” were as moving as the original story had been, and I didn’t want to diminish the first story by publishing something less than meaningful. For a while, I thought I could write a story about the middle years of Noah and Allie’s life, since I’d neglected those years in The Notebook. But that wasn’t really a sequel, it was more of a “fill-in-the-blank” type of story, and again, nothing I could come up with seemed quality enough to pursue.
At the same time this story was fermenting in my mind, I began thinking about the theme of love and renewal. In other words, I wanted to create a love story between a married couple, one in which the husband decides to court his wife all over again. I thought this would be a story that not only original to readers, but one that they might find relevant as well. Marriage is both the most wonderful and frustrating experiences of most people’s lives. No one’s marriage is perfect, and no one’s marriage is always easy. For these reasons, I find great nobility in people who work to improve their marriage and do their best to keep the romance in their marriage.
People have often written about couples like Wilson and Jane, couples that have simply drifted apart. Yet all too often, these stories center around adultery, and adultery isn’t a topic I wanted to explore. I find nothing romantic about adultery and nothing wonderful about stories that make adultery seem magical and beautiful. Morally, I believe that adultery is wrong, and I don't want to write such a story.
Love and renewal, while seemingly easy on the surface, was more challenging than I thought it would be. I began such a novel in the spring of 2000 and wrote nearly 175 pages before I realized that the story wasn’t going anywhere, and I set the book aside to write A Bend in the Road instead. Still, however, the idea stayed with me.
In 2002, these two ideas – a follow-up to The Notebook, and the theme of love and renewal -- merged, and soon afterwards, with the story taking shape in my mind, I began to write.
Notes on Writing the Book
The Wedding, while written relatively quickly, was exceptionally challenging when it came to the structure. There were, in essence, seven different levels of the story occurring simultaneously, and the difficulty arose in trying to blend them seamlessly together in such a way as to never confuse the reader. Two of the levels are obvious. The first concerns Wilson and how he courts Jane while preparing for the wedding – i.e. the “love story.” The second level concerns the preparation for the wedding itself. These first two primary levels were easy to conceive and write; it was the other five sub-levels that presented problems. Those were as follows:
First, the reader needed to understand what brought Wilson and Jane to this sad point in their marriage; i.e. the reader needed to feel the thirty years of “innocent neglect” as Wilson termed it. I needed to describe various significant events that had occurred over the course of their marriage or the story wouldn’t make sense.
Second, problems in a thirty-year marriage can’t realistically be fixed in a single week; thus, another level had to do with changes Wilson had been making since their last anniversary. The reader needed to see Wilson making honest efforts at improving his marriage for at least a year. In this way, Jane – and the reader -- would realize Wilson was serious about changing.
Third, if the reader only knew Wilson’s faults over the period of their marriage, they might wonder why Jane had fallen in love with him in the first place. Thus, another level dealt with how Wilson and Jane had originally met and fallen in love.
From there, I had to run parallels from that original “courting” story to the week spent in preparation for the wedding. This helps to flesh out the novel by creating a sense of déjà vu, and help build dramatic tension.
Finally, since the novel was a follow-up to The Notebook, Noah had to have a story as well, one that paralleled The Notebook; i.e. unconditional love, and the magic of seeing their love last through anything.
In essence then, there were seven levels in the novel:
Level 1 -- Wilson courting Jane over the course of a week
Level 2 – Preparations for the wedding
Level 3 – How Wilson and Jane originally courted.
Level 4 – Description of their 30 year marriage and Wilson’s “innocent neglect.”
Level 5 – Wilson’s attempts to improve the marriage in the past year
Level 6 – Parallels between original courting and new courting.
Level 7 – Noah’s story
Anytime there are seven different levels in a short novel, complexity becomes an issue. Yet, the novel was made even more complex by the fact that each of the levels had to be told in a linear fashion and flow together as a single story. By that, I mean, each level had to have it’s own beginning, middle and end, and each level had to fit into the overall story in an appropriate way. Getting the balance just right was especially challenging, because I didn’t want the reader to notice the distinctness of these levels, but rather wanted them to read the novel as a whole.
Another difficulty arose from the fact that because Wilson and Jane had been married for thirty years, I couldn’t let the reader “learn” about Wilson and Jane through dialogue. Jane couldn’t, for instance, ask Wilson whether he had any siblings, or what his hobbies were. People married for thirty years often speak in short-hand; thus, I had to find a way to let the reader get to understand the characters without “get-to-know you” dialogue, and I had to structure the remaining “short-hand” dialogue in a way that it felt as if the reader was in the room “listening in” and still understanding exactly what was happening.
Still, despite the challenges, the writing proceeded relatively smoothly; there were only two rough spots. Halfway through the book, I realized that the story of Wilson and Jane’s original courting wasn’t linear; rather, it was a jumbled set of memories. Originally, I’d written the story of their first meeting and their first date, talked about their marriage, went back to the first kiss they’d ever shared, jumped forward to having children, went back to the marriage proposal, went backward again to Wilson’s final year in law school, then jumped forward again to half-way through their marriage. Each of those scenes had originally been intricately woven into the novel, and I had to remove them, reorder them, then change them to “fit” the scenes going on around them. That, my friends, is the beauty of fiction. I’m allowed to make things “fit.” Still, it wasn’t exactly easy to do.
The second challenge was coming up with something wonderfully romantic that Wilson could do for Jane on their “date.” It had to be big enough for readers to believe it had been the “anniversary gift’ he’d been planning for a year, but also had to fit within the events of the story. Believe it or not, simply thinking up that evening took nearly two weeks.
Once the novel was completed, editing was minor. It took less than a week to complete the editing process.
Reviews
Sparks tells his sweet story . . . a gasp inducing twist comes at the very end. Satisfied female readers will close the covers with a sigh and wish that a little of the earnest, too-good-to-be-true Wilson might rub off on their own bedmates.
-- Publishers Weekly
The Wedding is a lovely, involving tale. . . Sparks is a past master at drawing real, feeling characters, and at drawing out his readers’ emotions.
-- Bookloons
The Wedding is an excellent story . . . this reading experience can lead to self-examination.
-- Oklahoman
Sweet but packs a punch . . . There is a twist that pulls everything together and makes you glad your read this.
-- Charlotte Observer
Sparks returns to characters from The Notebook ... and writes about Allie and Noah Calhoun’s oldest daughter, Jane, and her husband, Wilson. . . Sparks is at his romantic best in this tender love story about a flawed hero trying to right his wrongs.
-- Booklist
FAQ
Why do you call it a "follow-up," instead of a sequel, to The Notebook?
Technically, it isn't a sequel. A sequel would have followed the lives of Noah and Allie after the conclusion of The Notebook. Instead, I wrote about the next generation.
Are you more like Wilson or Noah?
Oh, I guess I'd have to say Noah. But you should probably ask my wife that question.
Where did you get the idea of centering the novel on the planning of a wedding?
I love weddings, and I thought it would be a way to make the novel seem more universally romantic. Usually, when I make decisions about particular elements or events in a novel, it's for those same reasons. In addition, when I was originally thinking through the novel, I spent a lot of time ...
Will you ever do a follow-up to The Wedding?
Maybe. I’m toying with the idea of using Anna and Keith again and even have some ideas for a possible story. But I can't say when I'll actually sit down to write it.
Why did you include the swan in the story? And what are your thoughts about it?
For starters, Noah needed to have his own story because I didn't want his presence in the novel to feel forced. Yet, if that was my intent, I wanted Noah's story to model the story in The Notebook, i.e., Allie had to find a way to come back to h ...
In what ways are you like Wilson?
I love my wife, and take my work seriously.
Have you ever forgotten your anniversary?
No. Thank goodness.
Book Club/Discussion Questions
1. New Bern was the original setting for the novel, The Notebook, and is revisited again in The Wedding. In The Notebook, the setting itself was almost a character. Was New Bern a “character” in The Wedding? How strong was the sense of place? Should more have been added to the story about the town? Why or why not?
2. Wilson is unlike any other character Nicholas has created. In what ways is Wilson different than the male protagonists in Nicholas’s other novels? Did Wilson seem more or less real than typical fictional characters? Wilson admits that he hasn’t been the kind of husband Jane needed, or even the best father he could have been. Yet, he also admits that he only came to understand these things when he realized he might lose Jane. Is this realistic? Do you believe men in general are much the same way? Why or why not?
3. Jane travels to New York, not only to visit her son, but because she wonders about her relationship with Wilson. Should she have been more honest with Wilson as to her reasons for leaving? Would talking to Wilson about her concerns have helped? Jane is portrayed as primarily a mother, who – at least in Wilson’s eyes – is far less at fault for the marriage problems than he is. Is Wilson being realistic when it comes to his impression of Jane? What could Jane have done earlier in their marriage to convince Wilson to spend more time with the family? Is Jane the type of person who is comfortable with confrontation? Why or why not?
4. The wedding plans come together over the course of a week. Was there anything that Wilson could have changed to make the wedding even more special?
5. The house is a central setting in the novel. What other roles does the house play? How is the house a metaphor for the relationship between Wilson and Jane? How is it a metaphor for Noah and Allie? How is it a metaphor for life?
6. Noah, who’s story was told in The Notebook, makes a return visit as a character in The Wedding. Did Noah seem the same as you originally imagined him? In what ways was he the same? In what ways was he different? How does Noah view his role when it comes to Wilson? What is his role when it comes to Jane? Noah also believes that Allie, his departed wife, is still with him. Is this reasonable? Did Noah really believe it, or did he simply want to believe it? What is the difference between the two?
7. Anna plays a small, albeit important, role in the story. Should her character have been more deeply explored? Anna is an accomplice of sorts to Wilson. Is this in keeping with her character? Anna has a distant, yet strangely touching, relationship with Wilson. How has this relationship changed over the years? By the end of the novel, do you believe Anna sees Wilson with new respect? How does she see her mother?
8. The Wedding builds to a dramatic twist at the end of the novel. Were you surprised? After finishing the novel, had Wilson’s plans always been obvious? Was it possible to realize what was happening through a closer reading of the novel?
Foreign Sales
- Croatia / Algoritam
- Czech Republic / Euroclub
- Finland / WSOY
- France / Laffont
- Germany / Heyne
- Greek / Modern Times
- Hungary / General Press
- Israel / Modan Publishing
- Italy / Sperling & Kupfer / Frassinelli
- Japan / Artist House
- Netherlands / House of Books
- Norway / Damm
- Poland / Albatros
- Portugal / Presenca
- Romania / RAO
- Russia / AST
- Spain / Roca
- Thailand / Matichon
- Turkey / Alfa Publishing (Paperback)
- UK / Time Warner
Published: 2003