This time, ‘Prada’s’ Lauren Weisberger has revenge in mind

New York-based author Lauren Weisberger recently followed up her big 2003 bestseller, “The Devil Wears Prada,” with a sequel set a decade later, “Revenge Wears Prada” — her fifth novel about the young and chic. Weisberger’s protagonist, Andy, has graduated from assisting the editor of a major fashion magazine to editing her own glossy that covers weddings.

Did you feel any pressure from your publisher or fans to write a sequel to “The Devil Wears Prada”?

I wouldn’t say that I felt any pressure. It was really something that I wanted to do. The pressure probably came in wanting to stay true to these characters that readers had really connected with. It is 10 years later; it doesn’t pick up where the first one left off. So I wanted to find a way to have the whole crew come back again but still let them grow up and change and face new obstacles.

Has this book been optioned?

This isn’t something I know a tremendous amount about, but Fox doesn’t need to option this book. They own the characters. So it’s really their choice whether to decide to make a second movie.

Of course, Miranda has been linked to Vogue editor Anna Wintour, but taking the character as an archetype, do you have any sense of how common Mirandas — or people on the Miranda scale — are in New York?

I get a lot of feedback whenever I’m on book tour. Still, even 10 years later, I get so many readers coming up to me at events saying, “I’ve had a boss like this.” People in St. Louis and Miami, really all over the country. It’s sort of upsetting how many people relate to this character. I hear stories that I can’t even believe. Recently, I met a reader who was an assistant to a very powerful woman, and the woman made her escort her to the hospital when she went into labor, stay with her through the labor, and [the assistant] was the first one to hold the baby, even before her husband.

Some critics found Miranda more interesting than your young protagonist, Andy. Why does she take up relatively little space in the book?

Because I definitely think of it as Andy’s story. Despite who critics might find more interesting, I think that my readers can certainly relate more to Andy and [her business partner] Emily, the struggles they’re going through. There just aren’t that many people who pick up this book and relate on a level of being the head of the fashion and publishing industries simultaneously. Miranda is not the every-page presence that she was in the first book, so I had to up the ante in making her even scarier. That’s why I made her the editorial director of [fictional magazine publisher] Elias-Clark. I gave her more of a position of power to properly torment them.

You’ve gotten some pretty harsh reviews, although your book is on the bestseller list. Even Liz Smith says she thinks it’s time for you to abandon chick lit. How do you respond to that?

I don’t. I don’t read them. The most important feedback for me is what I hear from readers when I’m out on a book tour.

Over the last decade, the economy has changed quite a bit, but there’s no awareness among your wealthy characters that a lot of people are undergoing hardships. Why did you make that choice? Is that what you’ve observed?

I think it’s a really fair point, and it is something I thought about. But when push comes to shove, I really want these books to be entertaining and escapist and aspirational and something that’s fun to pick up and read at the beach this summer. It’s not meant to be social commentary so much. I do think there’s probably an element that this cast of characters lives a pretty privileged life in Manhattan and are definitely more out of touch with what’s going on in the rest of the country.

A large part of the book is about marriage and motherhood, which you’ve also experienced during that period. And Andy has a hard time combining a big career and new motherhood. How have you dealt with that?

I’m dealing with it every minute. It’s incredibly challenging. I have a 1- and a 2-year-old. So I had my second while I was writing this book. I was pregnant with him and gave birth to him and went back to writing when he was 3 months old to finish the editing. So it’s definitely something that’s at the forefront of my mind and the main conversation of my friends and myself — trying to find that balance. I feel incredibly lucky. I have an amazing support system — I have grandparents nearby, I have an incredibly supportive husband, we have a nanny, my daughter goes to a little neighborhood school and it’s still so challenging. There are so many people who don’t have anywhere near that level of support, and I can’t fathom how they do it.

You look great after two kids. How do you keep your girlish figure?

After my second, I started working with a nutritionist who specializes in post-baby weight loss. It’s called Simply Beautiful Mom. I’m in restaurants all the time because of work, and she actually will look at menus online before I go and she says, “These are the three things you’re allowed to order. Don’t even open a menu.”

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