Emma Straub On Success & Happiness In ‘Modern Lovers’
Modern Lovers is about a tight-knit group of friends from college — whose own kids are now going off to college — figuring out what it means to grow up well after adulthood. It’s a story of relationships that explores ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth and the shock of middle age, all while maintaining that perfect balance of amusement, substance and tenderness characteristic of Straub’s writing. We loved it and were thrilled when Straub agreed to take a minute from her busy life of book tours and newborn babies to tell us a little more about what went into making one of this summer’s most buzzed about books.
- Modern Lovers follows college friends and former band mates in their middle adult years. They find themselves living in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn grappling with adulthood. What inspired the story?
I used to have a neighbor who was in a band, the youngest member of which looked to be in his 40s. I became kind of obsessed with a married couple in the band, and I spent a few years trying to write a short story about the teenage son of a similar couple. That never went anywhere, though, until I backed up and realized it would be better as a novel. The families in my book are nothing like my former neighbors, of course, I should make that clear.
2. Your last book The Vacationers was one of our favorites at The Strand, landing on our staff pick wall as well as in our Christmas gift guide. Modern Lovers feels like it exists in a similar, albeit different, world. The most obvious difference is that these characters are older, and facing more “grown up” issues. Was this the next natural step for your writing?
Well, the parents are younger and the kids are older, so maybe I’m just trying to meet in the middle! Ha! In my next book, maybe everyone will be in their 30s! Though that scares me, actually — I like to keep a healthy distance between my daily life/problems and my characters’ daily life/problems. I think that’s why I like writing about teenagers so much — I remember those aches, but they’re not mine anymore.
3. Modern Lovers covers several big themes including youth, independence, stagnation in work and in love, passion, ambition and of course, sexuality. What were the most important elements or ideas for you to get across?
For me, the heart of the book is about ambition and passion — that there is no stopwatch on success or happiness, that those feelings continue to grow and change. The other heart, if it can have three hearts, is about how you can’t really choose what stays with you, good or bad, that there are episodes in all of our lives that are indelible, even if they are invisible to those around us.
4. You have two kids of your own now, are living in Brooklyn, with a highly successful career — do you see any similarities in your own experience to those of Elizabeth, or Andrew, or Zoe?
Oh lord! Not Andrew. Zoe’s too cool. I guess Elizabeth? I do like a good simmer, and she’s a simmerer.
5. Do you think we will hear more about Ruby and Harry in the future?
If you hear from them, please call me, because I love them dearly, but I don’t have any plans for a sequel. Maybe in twenty years. Who knows?
BONUS: Are you reading anything currently that is blowing your mind?
I have a 3.5 month old baby, so just reading these questions was hard! I look forward to reading again soon. I have three friends with books out this summer — Stuart Nadler’s The Inseparables, Rumaan Alam’s Rich and Pretty, and Rae Meadows’ I Will Send Rain. Those are all winners!
Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Vacationers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Elle, and Conde Nast Traveler, and she is a contributing writer for Rookie. Straub’s work has been published in fifteen countries. Modern Lovers is out May 31 from Riverhead Books and is available for purchase here!
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