Marisa: I'm a New York Times reader and writer. I was reading the obituaries. I saw the one for Jean Nidetch. I admit I had never heard of her or had any idea of who she was. I had this sense of, oh, I can't wait to read this because this is the woman who I can finally put a face to all of my rage. I can sort of blame her for messing up my life. Instead, I read it and I saw this rags-to-riches story. I saw a woman who was about the same age that I was at the time also reckoning with her forties and changing her life, a Jewish woman in Brooklyn. We even look a little bit alike. I thought, we have so much in common, I want to know so much more, and just had so many questions that I wanted answered about her life, about mine. That's kind of the impetus. Then just couldn't get it out of my head and finally decided to write about it.