Author Ellie Palmer pulled a lot from her own experience while writing her debut rom-com, Four Weekends and a Funeral — but Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman inadvertently led to the novel’s twist.
Light spoilers for Four Weekends and a Funeral ahead.
“The movie While You Were Sleeping was a huge inspiration for me,” Palmer exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting the novel, which was released on Tuesday, August 6. The 1995 classic stars Bullock as Lucy, a woman who is misidentified as the fiancée of a comatose patient named Peter (Peter Gallagher) after accompanying him to the hospital. There, she meets Peter’s brother, Jack (Pullman) and they fall in love.
“One of the best parts of that movie for me is when Peter Gallagher wakes up — it just sort of takes everything in a different direction,” Palmer explained to Us. “Because he wakes up, he can kind of give them permission to be together at the end. He gets to give them the OK, and it gives you this warm feeling at the end.”
This wasn’t an option for Palmer when it came to her book. Four Weekends and a Funeral follows Alison — a 30-year-old woman who recently underwent a double mastectomy after testing positive for the BRCA-1 gene mutation — as she attends her ex-boyfriend Sam’s funeral. Alison discovers that Sam’s family never found out about their breakup, leading his parents to believe that they were still romantically involved when he died. Sam’s best friend, Adam, throws a wrench into Alison’s plans — especially as she starts to fall for him.
Ellie Palmer. Courtesy of Ellie Palmer/Instagram
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“From the beginning, Sam was dead, and part of the book is [Alison and Adam] dealing with their emotions with that,” Palmer told Us. “I wanted him sprinkled throughout, and then as I was heading towards the ending, I could sense how it was all coming together.”
Similar to Gallagher’s character in While You Were Sleeping, Sam is “a really good guy” and who posthumously becomes a part of Alison and Adam’s love story, Palmer said.
Bringing it all back to the movie, Us pitched Bullock and Pullman to play Sam’s parents in Palmer’s novel.
@usweekly @Ellie Palmer | Rom-Com Author is teaming up with Us to bring her new book, Four Weekends and a Funeral, to life with fan casting! 🌟📚 Share your dream cast for the characters and join the fun. Who would you choose? #FourWeekendsAndAFuneral #booktoker #bookworm #bookclub #bookrecommendations #bookrecs #romcombooks
♬ original sound – Us Weekly
“That’s perfect,” Palmer gushed. “I love that so much.”
Keep reading for answers to all of Us Weekly’s burning questions about Four Weekends and Funeral:
Us Weekly: What made you decide to turn your idea into a novel?
Ellie Palmer: I had thought of the premise for the book early on and filed that away as something too zany. It wasn’t until I was preparing for a preventative mastectomy — I’m a carrier of the BRCA1 genetic mutation — I was reading so much romance and loving all of the movies and the books that I was reading. I was also dealing with some of the emotions that come with having hereditary cancer in your family and the survivor’s guilt that comes from being armed with this information. To mitigate my risk meant that other people in my family were not able to, and that’s how you’re able to prove that you can get a mastectomy. So, while I was grappling with those emotions, I thought [it] would be perfect to plop in this idea — where an imposter at a funeral is someone who feels like an imposter in their own health journey.
Us Weekly: Has anyone in your family read the book and what did they think?
Ellie Palmer: My mom read the book, she had breast cancer when I was 10. She really enjoyed [the story]. We’ve often talked about the strangeness of having a mastectomy and then the reconstruction process and having new body parts. It is such a strange thing that is so universal to that experience.
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Us Weekly: In the book, Allison’s mom was also a breast cancer survivor. How much of their relationship was pulled from you and your mom?
Ellie Palmer: I think my mom and I are close in the way that Allison and her mom are. They also have this relationship where they can joke back and forth and rib each other in a car ride. Mom and I are very much like that too.
Us Weekly: Why was it important to include the morning after scene with Adam at Allison’s apartment, where he sees her mastectomy scars?
Ellie Palmer: I really wanted to make sure that they had that moment., I had a surgeon tell me, “When you are looking in the mirror and you expect to see something else, and you kind of do that double take, that’s what you’ll experience.” I definitely did experience that when I was recovering, and I wanted [Adam] to have that moment and not do that double take and just sort of accept her as she is. It was really healing for me, but it was also this moment that I really wanted other people to see and read.
Us Weekly: Tell us about creating Allison’s support system with friends Mara and Chelsea.
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Ellie Palmer: The friends were so clear to me from day one writing this book. I knew exactly who she needed in her life. During my own struggles with my mastectomy or any hard times in my life in general, before you find a romantic partner, my friends were my life partners.
Us Weekly: Is there a reality TV universe where Allison and Adam would fit?
Ellie Palmer: I think Adam would be good at Survivor, but I don’t think he would like it. He’d really shine there. … I could see Allison on Love Island because I think she would be into just chilling, just hanging out. It’s a lot of friendship on Love Island. It’s a lot of hanging with the girls. I feel like she’d excel at that.
Us Weekly: Do you think Adam and Allison are endgame?
Ellie Palmer: I definitely think they’re endgame. I think that they’re really well suited for each other. They want the same things. They have all the things in common that you want to have. I think right now they’re living together, maybe they’re starting to think about whether they want to get married. I had that be ambiguous of whether that was something that they wanted but I’d be interested to see in a sequel where they land on that.
