Vacationers (Straub)

The Vacationers 
Emma Straub, 2014
Penguin Group (USA)
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594631573


Summary
An irresistible, deftly observed novel about the secrets, joys, and jealousies that rise to the surface over the course of an American family’s two-week stay in Mallorca.

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan.

But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

This is a story of the sides of ourselves that we choose to show and those we try to conceal, of the ways we tear each other down and build each other up again, and the bonds that ultimately hold us together. With wry humor and tremendous heart, Emma Straub delivers a richly satisfying story of a family in the midst of a maelstrom of change, emerging irrevocably altered yet whole. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1979-80
• Raised—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City


Emma Straub is an American author three novels and a short story collection. Raised on Manhattan's Upper West side, she now lives with her husband and two young sons in Brooklyn.

Emma comes by writing naturally: her father is Peter Straub, an award winning writer of horror fiction, a fact which makes even Emma admit to a belief in a writing gene. Here's what she told Michele Filgate of Book Slut:

I believe the writing gene is located just behind the gene for enjoying red wine and just in front of the gene for watching soap operas, both of which I also inherited from my father. What I do know for sure is that I watched my father write for a living my entire childhood, and I understood that it was a job like any other, that one had to do all day, every day. I think a lot of people have the fantasy that a writer sits around in coffee shops all day, waiting for the muse to appear.

So while genes may play a role, so does hard work and grit: determined to become a writer, she pushed on even after her first four books were turned down. As she told Alexandra Alter of the New York Times,

They all got rejected by every single person in publishing, in the world. It’s still true that I will go to a publishing party or event, and the first thing I will think of is, "I know who you are, you rejected novels 2 and 4."

It's nice to think that today Straub is having the last laugh.

Attending Oberlin College, Straub received her B.A. in 2002. She went on to earn her M.F.A. at the University of Wisconsin where she studied with author Lorrie Moore. Returning to New York, she worked for a number of years at the independent Book Court bookstore in Brooklyn.

Her novels include Modern Lovers (2016), The Vacationers (2014), and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures (2012). Her story collection is titled Other People We Married (2011). Straub's fiction and nonfiction have been published in Vogue, New York Magazine, Tin House, New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and Paris Review Daily. She is also a contributing writer to Rookie. (LitLovers.)

Book Reviews
This glimpse into the Posts’ real-estate-blessed lives...might give the less fortunate reader an attack of the Majorca-deprived blues, but the novel’s joy and humor are infectious. Straub may be an heir to Laurie Colwin, crafting characters that are smart, addictively charming, delightfully misanthropic and fun.... When I turned the last page, I felt as I often do when a vacation is over: grateful for the trip and mourning its end
Margo Rabb - New York Times Book Review


Straub (Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures) seems to have found her stride. The pacing is quick but satisfying and the characters themselves feel genuinely complex, interesting, and knowable. While the structure of the novel does feel somewhat unoriginal...Straub uses the simplicity of the organization to her advantage. A pleasant, readable journey.
Publishers Weekly


The Post family is leaving Manhattan for their long-planned trip to Mallorca, an intended celebration.... Secrets and longings are revealed, and relationships shift into new configurations.... Verdict: An examination of fidelity, passion, and the vagaries of relationships, this is summer reading with some sizzle and seriousness. —Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Sharply observed and funny, Straub’s domestic-drama-goes-abroad is a delightful study of the complexities of family and love, and the many distractions from both.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Straub refreshes a conventional plot through droll humor and depth of character. By now, the premise is so familiar it seems like such a novel could write itself, but it wouldn't write itself nearly as engagingly as Straub has.... A novel that is both a lot of fun to read and has plenty of insight into the marital bond and the human condition.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Franny and Charles have been friends for a long time. How does their close relationship affect other people on vacation with them?

2. From the outset, the Posts aren’t too fond of Carmen. Do you think she is treated fairly or unfairly by her boyfriend’s family?

3. How does Bobby and Sylvia’s relationship as adult siblings evolve over the course of the novel?

4. At the start of The Vacationers, Jim and Franny’s relationship is on the rocks, and it later comes dangerously close to falling apart. Is it possible to rebuild trust once it’s been lost?

5. This is a story about what we try to conceal from others, even from those closest to us, sometimes even from ourselves-and what we choose to show them instead. Have you ever felt like you’ve had to put on a good face for others?

6. What was the last vacation that you went on, and who did you go with? Did it give you a different perspective on your day-to-day life at home?

7. Do you think Bobby handled his financial difficulties the right way? Should he have kept these problems to himself or come clean to his family sooner?

8. The infidelity in Charles and Lawrence’s relationship is dealt with in a way that markedly contrasts with the other instances in The Vacationers. Does infidelity always have to be a big deal in a relationship?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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