Good news from Emma Straub

I’ve mentioned before how much I like Emma Straub’s writing—when I posted an excerpt from Other People We Married, a collection of stories that was published in February. Then, I wrote that the stories are “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.”

In less than two weeks, you can have another taste of Straub’s prose—or a gulp, really. Her debut novel, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, comes out on September 4. The story is about a girl who is born to farmers in 1920s Wisconsin . . . and who eventually moves to Hollywood and reinvents herself as a movie star. Reviewer Lauren Bufferd calls the novel “superb
. . . a marvel.” She writes, “[Straub’s] silken writing conjures images of old Hollywood, all red lipstick and Glenn Miller, but even more impressively, Straub paints a vivid portrait of a woman torn between her desire for fame and what she must leave behind to win it.”

We interviewed Straub about the novel for the September issue of BookPage. One question we asked her—which we didn’t end up running in print—was about her next project. Here’s what she said:

Right now I’m working on a novel about a New York family on vacation in Spain. We’ll see how it goes! Wish me luck!

Well, obviously her work paid off—because today Publishers Marketplace announced a second novel from Emma Straub to be published in 2014. Called The Good Face, it has been compared to “country house novels like Enchanted April and Maine.”

The novel “captures the tensions, longings, grudges, and secrets that explosively rise to the surface during an extended family’s two-week vacation in Mallorca, Spain.”

Yay! Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures made our “Most buzzed-about debuts of 2012″ list. We’re excited for her next project . . . and of course, for Laura Lamont to come out in a couple of weeks. What about you?