Modern Lovers: not your typical summer read

Fri, 07/29/2016 - 9:38am by eapearce

Emma Straub gifted readers with the perfect summer novel two years ago, with The Vacationers, a beach read that was made so much more by the insight and wit with which Straub captured her characters. This summer, she’s done it again with Modern Lovers, a less beachy (it takes place in Brooklyn rather than the Mallorca setting of The Vacationers) but equally riveting story.

Former college bandmates Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe have remained friends and neighbors since graduating thirty years ago. They’ve all clung on to their youth, some more successfully than others, but as their own children grow up and begin the fledging steps of adulthood themselves, the three friends must cope with the abrupt realization that they are no longer the young, sexy musicians they once were. It seems at first glance that Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe have all come to an easy form of success in their adulthood; they have good jobs, families, partners, homes and each other. But it is the summer when their own children reach maturity that this all begins to unravel, and long kept secrets, truths, and loves come to the light. Re-enter the legacy of a fourth band member who actually went on to become famous without the trio but died a tragic death before reaching thirty, and it’s a complicated summer indeed.

“Straub packs wisdom and insight and humor together in a satisfying book about neighbors and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us,” concludes the book jacket. The New York Times Book Review cautions readers from dismissing the book as light vacation reading, despite its sunny cover: “It’s just too deftly and thoughtfully written to be relegated merely to the beach.”