‘I Feel Like It’s a Fantasy Novel.’ Emma Straub’s All Adults Here Delivers a Dose of Normal Life, Right When We Need It

By Annabel Gutterman

Ten minutes into my video interview with the author Emma Straub, I’m chatting with her husband Mike. This Google Hangout is supposed to be about Straub’s new novel, but it turns out Mike and I have the same hometown, and our eyes are bright with the thrill of meeting someone new whom we can talk to about something besides the pandemic. Soon after he leaves and Straub and I are back on track, talking fiction and family, she pauses. “Hold on,” she says, “we have a 6-year-old who is about to come in.” And so it goes.

Like many parents, Straub, 40, is homebound and juggling two jobs. While she promotes her new book, All Adults Here, and helps manage new challenges for the bookstore she and her husband own in Brooklyn, she is also homeschooling her two young kids, breaking up fights and spending a lot of time playing with Legos.

Though the novelist never could have anticipated it, the cozy saga of familial bonds and strife she’s preparing to release on May 4 has taken on new meaning. Many of us have been forced into inescapably close quarters with the people we love most–getting reacquainted with one another’s most irritating quirks and wondering how to live under the same roof without losing our minds. Read the full review at Time.

We’re so excited to be chatting with Emma Straub as one of our Books & Bathrobes events — and we would love for you to join us! To reserve your spot, please visit her event page.