reviews
FICTION
ical novel Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures. The Vacationers begins as the Post family is getting ready to leave their Upper West Side apartment for a two-week vacation on the island of Mallorca. Franny is a CALIFORNIA zaftig travel writer who treats food as a means of therapy; her husREVIEW BY MATTHEW JACKSON band, Jim, was just fired from his Stories of human survival and hope after an apocalyptic event are longtime job as a magazine editor well worn at this point. As a result, the themes and tropes of these after having an affair with an editotales often feel so trodden and predictable that they become little rial assistant barely older than his more than echoes. Then, there are stories like California. daughter. Only mildly aware of her In the near future, civilization as Cal and Frida know it has crumparents’ marital problems, Sylvia is bled. Hoping for a new life, they flee the ruined city of Los Angeles and focused on starting at Brown in the settle in a small shed in the wilderness, carving out the best life they fall, far away from the brutality of can with what little they have. It’s hard, but they have each other, and high school bullies. that seems comfort enough—until Frida discovers she’s pregnant. Joining the group is Sylvia’s older Fearing what might happen if they try to survive the pregnancy brother Bobby (a Miami real estate alone, Cal and Frida set out for a mysterious nearby settlement, but agent) and his personal trainer when they arrive, it becomes clear that this hoped-for sanctuary is girlfriend, Carmen. Rounding instead a world where it seems no one can be trusted. out the bunch of vacationers is The real secret to the greatness of California, aside from its fully reFranny’s best friend, Charles, and By Edan Lepucki alized characters and thoughtful narration, is an attention to detail that his husband, Lawrence, who are Little, Brown, $26, 400 pages draws you immediately into Edan Lepucki’s mysterious new world. awaiting possible good news from ISBN 9780316250818, audio, eBook available This isn’t a place of easy answers, but it is a place of layered, constantly an adoption agency. DEBUT FICTION unfolding ones. Frida and Cal’s journey is a web of secrets, fears and But while Franny meant for the truths old and new, and Lepucki deftly creates the sense that these trip to celebrate her and Jim’s 35th elements are simultaneously happening all at once and feeding off each other, crafting a truly unpredictanniversary along with Sylvia’s high able tale of human frailty and determination. Here, the world ends messily, like an ugly relationship, and school graduation, the vacation the ways in which the characters have to put their lives back together are equally fractured. The result is not turns into something much heavier only a singular post-apocalyptic novel, but a debut you won’t want to miss. California will lure you in with as tensions are inflamed, jealousies its mysteries, seduce you with its secrets and haunt you long after you’ve finished it. are ignited and, ultimately, those pesky family secrets are revealed. Straub transports her readers to Although Bohjalian’s latest novel an idyllic paradise of cobblestone crafting a young female protagonist CLOSE YOUR EYES, HOLD HANDS who is fatally flawed, but neverthe- is unflinchingly raw in its depiction streets, olive-tree-strewn hillsides, of homelessness and the devastaless immensely likable. stunning beaches and rich, foreign Emily Shepard is a high school tion of a nuclear meltdown, it never delicacies, even as she creates an By Chris Bohjalian student struggling with a typical feels preachy or maudlin. Instead, it all-too-real family drama. The Doubleday adolescence—until her comfortresonates with a message of hope, Vacationers is as refreshing as a $25.95, 288 pages truth and the fragility of life. able life is torn asunder after a catfrozen strawberry daiquiri and full ISBN 9780385534833 Audio, eBook available astrophic meltdown at a Vermont — K A R E N A N N C U L L O T T A of crisply drawn characters you’ll nuclear plant, where her parents feel you’ve come to know. COMING OF AGE are employed. As Armageddon an—MEGAN FISHMANN THE VACATIONERS nihilates the once idyllic Northeast THE QUICK Kingdom, Emily’s father, who was By Emma Straub If the dystopian coming-of-age once disciplined for drinking on Riverhead novel has been the inspiration for the job, and her mother, who is also $26.95, 304 pages By Lauren Owen renowned for her alcohol-fueled many a Hollywood blockbuster ISBN 9781594631573 Random House in recent years, the increasingly escapades, become scapegoats. eBook available $27, 544 pages Orphaned and alone, Emily ubiquitous genre more closely reISBN 9780812993271 POPULAR FICTION sembles literary fiction in critically joins the ranks of homeless teens Audio, eBook available acclaimed author Chris Bohjalian’s wandering the streets of BurlingDEBUT FICTION ton, her intelligence and passion Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands. For readers who discovered Boh for poet Emily Dickinson coexistEmma Straub’s delightful second ing warily alongside a tawdry life jalian after his luminous Midwives novel, The Vacationers, is the best riddled by drugs and prostitution. became an Oprah’s Book Club work yet from this Brooklyn-based Warning to the reader: It is imselection, the prolific author’s latest Indeed, it is Emily’s inherent inwriter, who previously penned the possible for this review to proceed novel will not disappoint: He once tegrity and capacity to endure that quirky short story collection Other without a number of spoilers. In again reveals an uncanny talent for proves her salvation. People We Married and the historcase anyone still holds the charm-
After the end, a new beginning
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