Review by Booklist Review
Straub's collection of short stories is a resplendent debut, arriving in a whirl of buzz, thanks to her appearances in Tin House, the Paris Review, and Slate. Heir to Ann Beattie and Lorrie Moore, Straub evinces marvelous literary confidence in her deadpan hilarity, eye for redolent details, and acute psychological insights. She also excels at the art of sudden reversals as she takes measure of the unbridgeable gaps that divide us and the leaps that save us. The deeply involving title story is one of several featuring magnetic Franny Gold, whose entanglements cause equal degrees of bliss and anguish. Elsewhere, three young college English professors share a tiny office, and two very different sisters make the mistake of vacationing together. In the standout, Abraham's Enchanted Forest, a teenage daughter assesses her life with her hippie parents, who run a funky roadside attraction. In the wistful, funny, and unnerving Fly-Over State, a New Yorker comes undone in Wisconsin. Straub's stories glow and pulse and, like sea anemones, are far more complex and dangerous than their bright and beckoning appearances suggest.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Though fresh and satisfying insights can surface in even the most common terrain, this debut story collection, from the daughter of horror heavyweight Peter Straub, offers little originality or wit. Despite the stories taking place in different locations, what the characters encounter along the way remains provincial, the circumstantial and geographic territory covered ringing all too familiar. Set in the Midwest, "Some People Must Really Fall in Love," presents a young female professor with a crush on one of her students. In "Rosemary," set in Brooklyn, a new mother's beloved cat flees after the baby is born. In the title story, Franny's best friend is a gay man who awkwardly accompanies her and her husband on a Martha's Vineyard vacation. "Puttanesca," by contrast, is a delight: Stephen and Laura met through their bereavement counselor, having each lost a significant other when young. Despite a trip to Italy, Laura in particular remains in the shadow of her dead husband, and in this there is tenderness and intrigue. "Orient Point" follows an unlikely couple and their baby to Long Island. Though it's the shortest of the collection, it's also the strongest, nailing both a humor and an inevitable loss that is never quite realized in the other stories. Agent: Jenni Ferrari-Adler, Brick House. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Straub's debut collection of 12 stories mixes regret, remorse, and ironic insight to highlight couples and decisions. The big choices are already made (marriage, children, staying together or not), and yet small, everyday decisions can change a relationship completely with blinding speed. Narrator Coleen Marlo easily carries all of the characters in her voice. Even with multiple players in a single story, she smoothly transitions between men/women and young/old. -VERDICT Recommended for readers (both men and women) of pithy short stories of young couples set in modern times. ["These stories of love in its various permutations, gone wrong and right, are told with a captivating wryness...that readers will find tremendously appealing," read the review of the Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA) pb, LJ 2/15/12.-Ed.]-J. Sara Paulk, Wythe--Grayson Regional Lib., Independence, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Oh, you! You can't be the mother of this child! You couldn't possibly be old enough!" In addition to arrested development, or a post-adolescence that extends into what was once considered middle age, a surprising number of these stories find two (or more) characters on vacation, or in a state of dislocation, a place where either the relationship changes or they (or at least one of them) discovers what has been wrong all along. They must, as Franny discovers in the pre-marriage "Pearls," where her friendship with her very different roommate briefly turns romantic. In the first-person opening story, "Some People Must Really Fall in Love," a young teacher in the grip of what she considers an inappropriate infatuation with a student tells her freshman class that "stories didn't have to have morals at the end." And many of these stories are left comparatively open-ended, rich in interpretive possibility. A fresh voice from a writer who deserves discovery.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
