Back in New York in 1932, Caspary was supporting herself and her mother writing magazine articles, including interviews for "Gotham Life". She also wrote "Thicker than Water", a thinly veiled Roman á clef about her own family. Caspary was almost broke, but after bumping into a story editor from Paramount, she came up with "Suburb", a forty-page original story written over a weekend for which Paramount paid her $2,000. Caspary admitted in her memoir that she rewrote and resold this exact plot exactly eight times in the coming years. The week after she sold it to Paramount the first time, Liveright publishers gave her a $1,000 advance on "Thicker Than Water".