Modern Lovers by Emma Straub

 

Summary (from the publishers): From the New York Times‒bestselling author of The Vacationers, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college—their own kids now going to college—and what it means to finally grow up well after adulthood has set in.

Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch (of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool) to their own offspring.

Back in the band's heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adults' lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose—about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them—can never be reclaimed.

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—be they food, or friendship, or music—never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us.

Review: Elizabeth, Andrew, and Zoe were all college friends and bandmates. Now approaching fifty, they're all still close. Elizabeth and Andrew are married with a son named Harry and live right down the straight in Brooklyn from Zoe and her wife Jane and their daughter Ruby. But over the course of one summer detailed in this book, their lives begin to unravel and some secrets from the past finally come to light. 

This novel explores the notion of intertwined histories, encroaching middle age, and how to continue to support relationships and interests as life continues to evolve. In short, this novel is about a summer that puts all its characters in some type of crises and question the paths their lives have taken. 

I struggle to write a review for this novel because it was just ok. I felt sort of ok about the characters, the storylines, the arc of the plot. It wasn't bad it just wasn't super memorable or striking either. I also felt like Straub threw too much into the plot. The main characters used to be famous! They have family money! They're hot lesbians with a hit restaurant! The teenagers are falling for one another! They're making a movie about their former bandmate! Andrew is being drawn into a cult! The lesbians are actually getting divorced! Wait both the marriages are unstable! There is a fire! It just felt like a lot.

At heart, this felt like a novel about privileged Brooklyn people going through a mid-life crisis while their children experience young love.  I didn't really like any of the characters and found their worries and so-called crises largely self-manufactured, first-world problems. 

Stars: 3

Related Title: 

• This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub