While researching her new novel, The Ten Year Nap, Wolitzer spent many mornings at a diner on the Upper East Side of Manhattan soaking up the chatter and atmosphere dispensed by 30-something mothers. The result is a "multicharacter meditation on a group of upper-middle-class women who have stayed home for a decade to raise their children". Wolitzer has said she wanted to capture the nuances of characters who happened to have children and happened not to work. She will have many readers nodding their heads in recognition as they read the story.