Other People We Married by Emma Straub
Riverhead • $15 • ISBN 9781594486067
On sale February 7, 2012
Emma Straub is a bookseller in Brooklyn and an entertaining Tweeter, and I’ve had my eye on her story collection ever since a) it was reviewed on The Book Lady’s Blog and b) I saw that Lorrie Moore described it as a “revelation” on the book jacket. Other People We Married was originally published by a small, independent press, but in two weeks Riverhead will publish a paperback edition. (Riverhead will also publish Straub’s debut novel.)
I haven’t finished this collection yet, and I’ve been skipping around, but so far I love these stories. They’re about people in transition, about loss and change and hope. Like in the best short stories, the language is clear and lovely and packed with imagery that will immerse you in a character’s world in just a few short pages. The stories are also very funny.
Here’s an example. This is from “Puttanesca,” in which a couple meet on a blind date arranged by their mutual bereavement therapist. This is the moment they first see each other at Starbucks:
“Stephen?” she said, sure that she would be speaking into thin air, that the quarterback would shake his head and probably laugh when he got outside. Laura wasn’t unattractive, she knew, but hers was a subtler kind: unplucked eyebrows and sensible footwear.
He looked startled, like a baby next to a popped balloon just before the tears started to flow. But then the momentary look of panic was gone, so absent, in fact, that Laura was sure she’d imagined it. “Laura?” he said. Stephen was already smiling when he slid into the seat across from her, as easily as if she and everyone else at the Starbucks had somehow wandered into his living room.
“Looks that way,” Laura said. Her hair felt even more brown than usual, like mouse fur or dry dirt. “Hi.” At least it was long again. After John died, she’d chopped all her hair off, up to her ears. Her mother said she looked like Joan of Arc, who Laura thought probably didn’t have a mirror. It had not been a compliment.
What are you reading today? Are you interested in Other People We Married? For even more fantastic short story collections, see this spotlight from the February issue of BookPage on new books from Nathan Englander and Dan Chaon.
