The Vacationers

February 24, 2014
The Post family is going to Mallorca for two weeks of vacation, but for them clouds are forming over the sunlit destination: the tickets were already booked when it came to light that Jim, Post père, has recently committed transgressions grave enough to get him fired and infuriate Franny, his wife of 35 years. The couple’s youngest daughter, Sylvia, has just graduated from high school and her parents are anxious to have one last family holiday before she becomes an adult. Joining them are Sylvia’s older brother and his girlfriend, as well as Franny’s best friend Charles and his husband. Every couple, and indeed every individual, arrives with a mix of optimism and trepidation, along with a host of uncertainties that, by book’s end, are satisfyingly resolved. Straub (Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures) seems to have found her stride. The pacing is quick but satisfying and the characters themselves feel genuinely complex, interesting, and knowable. While the structure of the novel does feel somewhat unoriginal—it begins with the airport, ends with the plane home, and the chapters in between are days of the trip—Straub uses the simplicity of the organization to her advantage. A pleasant, readable journey.

Starred review from March 15, 2014
Straub refreshes a conventional plot through droll humor and depth of character. By now, the premise is so familiar it seems like such a novel could write itself, but it wouldn't write itself nearly as engagingly as Straub has (Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, 2012, etc.). Starting with the somewhat generic title, she has all the predictable elements in place: family and close friends gathering at an exotic remove from their daily lives, reveal secrets (and articulate unacknowledged truths), learn how well they know each other and how well they don't, discover which relationships will endure--even strengthen--and which will dissolve. At the end of the idyll--in this case two weeks on the Spanish island of Mallorca--all will return transformed. The reason for this group gathering is the 35th anniversary of Jim and Franny and the high school graduation of their daughter, Sylvia. Franny is a successful journalist, specializing in travel pieces, and Jim had a career at a GQ-style magazine until he lost his job as editor for reasons that threaten their marriage. Sylvia is the novel's most perceptive character, with a single goal for the vacation--losing her virginity. Joining them are their older son, Bobby, and his older girlfriend, whose lives in Florida are something of a mystery to the New York family, as well as Franny's lifelong friend Charles and his husband, Lawrence. From the periphery, Lawrence observes that "[o]ther people's families were as mysterious as an alien species, full of secret codes and shared histories." Yet even those who share that history remain enigmas to each other, as Franny discovers about Jim: "What did anyone know about anyone else, including the person they were married to?" Ultimately, the reader will savor the novel's illumination of these characters, who are neither good nor evil but all too human. Will Jim and Franny stay together? Will Sylvia achieve her goal? A novel that is both a lot of fun to read and has plenty of insight into the marital bond and the human condition.

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May 1, 2014

Straub's second novel (after Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures) is perfect vacation reading, combining a warm-weather locale with complicated family drama. The Post family is leaving Manhattan for their long-planned trip to Mallorca, an intended celebration of both Franny and Jim's 35th wedding anniversary and daughter Sylvia's high school graduation. They've rented a house where they will be joined by family and friends: their son, Bobby; his girlfriend, Carmen; and Franny's best friend, Charles, and his husband, Lawrence. If their plans didn't involve other people, Franny and Jim might have called this vacation off, as family tensions have been growing over the hushed-up reason for Jim's recent forced retirement. As it is, corralling all these people into one house for a two-week stretch unleashes more emotional upheaval than could have been predicted. The arrival of a handsome local who is supposed to be tutoring Sylvia in Spanish only fuels the fire. Secrets and longings are revealed, and relationships shift into new configurations--with unexpected hopefulness in the story's conclusion. VERDICT An examination of fidelity, passion, and the vagaries of relationships, this is summer reading with some sizzle and seriousness. [See Prepub Alert, 1/19/14.]--Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-In this delightful concoction, family and friends come together for two weeks of summer vacation on the island of Mallorca. Franny is a freelance magazine writer about food from different regions. She's currently not speaking to her husband, a magazine editor recently dismissed for sleeping with an employee only a few years older than their daughter, Sylvia. The teen cannot wait to start at Brown University in the fall. All she wants from this vacation is to lose her virginity and try to forget her best friend's betrayal. Cue Joan, the gorgeous local college boy Franny has hired to tutor Sylvia in Spanish. Also in attendance, Franny's best friend of 40 years, Charles, to provide comfort and counsel. Charles and his husband, Lawrence, are waiting to hear whether they've been chosen to adopt a baby boy. Sylvia's older brother Bobby and Bobby's much-older girlfriend, Carmen fly in from Miami. Straub fleshes out all of these characters, effortlessly illuminating their foibles and mistakes, mitigated by the grace of forgiveness and familial understanding. Just as a great recipe is balanced and spiced, so Straub mixes the stress and comedy of a family vacation spent in close quarters to delightful effect.-Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2014
Straub's second novel (Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, 2012) is contained in the two-week vacation of the extended Post family: Franny and Jim, married over 30 years; their teen daughter, Sylvia; twentysomething son Bobby, his girlfriend, Carmen, in tow; and Franny's best friend, Charles, and his husband, Lawrence. Trading one grand island for another, the mainly Manhattanites arrive in Mallorca with, of course, a few secrets tucked in their literal baggageand so begin the games that occur above the plane of the Scrabble board. Jim has suddenly left his beloved magazine job, and not everyone knows the circumstances; Sylvia's excitement to get to Brown might have more to do with leaving home; Carmen wishes Bobby would ask his parents for that favor already; and it's more than work e-mails keeping Lawrence searching for a Wi-Fi signal. Straub masters a constantly changing flow of perspectives as readers wonder who will forgive and be forgiven in this sun-soaked, remote paradise. Spongy and dear, sharply observed and funny, Straub's domestic-drama-goes-abroad is a delightful study of the complexities of family and love, and the many distractions from both.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2014
Sieh, a relatively unknown character actress who has appeared in Boardwalk Empire and Orange Is the New Black, steals the show in this audio production, impressing listeners with her wit, humor, and remarkable accents. Straub’s novel takes place on the island of Mallorca, where the Post family and some friends have retreated for two weeks of sun, sand, and soul baring. It’s challenging to provide believable voices for around a dozen characters in many different stages of life, but Sieh nails them all without a hiccup. She is as adept with Sylvia (the teenage daughter whose epic bouts of sullen eye-rolling mask hidden depths) as she is with Sylvia’s brother Bobby, a 28-year-old Peter Pan who can’t quite settle into a job or a committed relationship, even though he’s brought his older girlfriend Carmen along to the beach. Sieh does an excellent job with Carmen’s Cuban-American Miami accent, then perfects the lilt of Sylvia’s handsome Spanish teacher, providing the appropriate lisp in his pronunciation of “Barthelona.” Add to this the indefatigable purposefulness of the Post matriarch, Franny, and the humor of several other characters, and Sieh’s narration makes for winning entertainment. A Riverhead hardcover.