Nanny Diaries authors take on East End in latest novel

The lives of East End teenagers take center stage in “The Real Real,” a new young adult novel from Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin, authors of the critically acclaimed “The Nanny Diaries.”

The novel, the authors’ first foray into teenage literature, centers on Jessie O’Rourke, a student at the fictional Hamptons High, who, despite leading a seemingly average existence, is selected for an MTV-like reality show. Think “Laguna Beach” meets Long Island. Though Jessie is tempted to turn down the offer, she agrees to do the show, hoping that the money she earns will allow her to be the first member of her working-class family to attend college.

But when network executives begin to dictate what she wears, where she goes, whom she talks to, and even where she lives, Jessie starts to realize that reality television is much different from her own reality. Faced with the possibility of losing both her family and her friends, Jessie must decide whether her instant fame is worth all the trouble.

Jessie’s struggles hit home with the authors, who led relatively normal lives prior to the instant success of “The Nanny Diaries,” their debut novel.

“We chose the story because we really did relate to it,” Ms. McLaughlin said in a recent interview in Sag Harbor. “We had just a tiny experience of celebrity after ‘Nanny’ came out.”

“In a way, we became as much of the story as the book,” she said. “We were unpublished writers who were suddenly doing media interviews ... for months at a time. We got just a tiny taste of what it would be like to live so publicly all the time.”

Both Ms. McLaughlin and Ms. Kraus said they were overwhelmed by the public’s response to “The Nanny Diaries.”

“We wrote it and thought just our moms were going to buy it,” Ms. McLaughlin laughed.

While the authors’ mothers picked up copies of “The Nanny Diaries,” they certainly weren’t alone. The novel based on the authors’ experiences as nannies for Manhattan’s elite went on to take the top spot on the New York Times best seller list for many weeks in 2002. Five years later, it was adapted into a major motion picture of the same name starring Scarlett Johansson and Laura Linney.

Since the release of “The Nanny Diaries,” Ms. McLaughlin and Ms. Kraus have released two other novels, “Citizen Girl,” and “Dedication,” making “The Real Real” their fourth collaboration.

The two, who met at an ATM machine shortly after their graduation from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, said they have long wanted to write a novel for young adults. “But we felt like we didn’t have anything to say to that readership,” Ms. Kraus said. The two were nervous about beginning to work on a novel for teenagers, she added, because the authors they had admired while growing up had been “so influential.”

“We were extremely intimidated to undertake speaking to this audience,” she said. “Judy Bloom loomed really large in our consciousness.”

But when the two admitted fans of reality television came up with the idea for “The Real Real,” they were convinced it was the perfect choice for their first young adult novel.

“We feel that people take reality television at face value,” Ms. Kraus explained. “Women like Lauren Conrad are held up as someone for teenagers to emulate, and the bar is being set at a place that is fictional.”

Ms. McLaughlin agreed.

“We really wanted to up the disconnect between what the producers and the network wanted to show versus the true reality of what these people’s lives were,” she said.

They chose the East End as the setting, they said, because it’s “a real community of real people.”

“Whenever you see the Hamptons on television, it’s solely as this glamorous playground,” Ms, McLaughlin said. “I come out here in the winter ... and that sort of glam factor, when you get to know the community, it’s kind of secondary. We thought it would be the perfect location for a heroine who externalized that.”

“The glamour couldn’t be farther from her reality,” Ms. Kraus added.

Finishing each other’s sentences isn’t abnormal for the two writers, who explained that they write each of their projects scene-by-scene, alternating authors. They constantly edit each other’s work and have a standing appointment to read to one another over the telephone at 7 p.m. each night.

They’ve traveled together extensively, only recently wrapping up a tour that took them to schools across the country promoting “The Real Real.” Earlier this month, the authors spoke to audiences at both Southampton High School and Pierson Middle and High School in Sag Harbor. They read from the book, discussed the writing process and answered student questions, encouraging aspiring authors to write as much as possible.

And the Manhattan residents will return to the East End this weekend, when they will host a reading and book signing at BookHampton in East Hampton on Saturday, June 27, at 8 p.m.

As for what’s next, a sequel to “The Nanny Diaries” is due on bookshelves December 15 and the authors said they plan on writing two books in 2010, at least one of which will be geared to young adults.