Modern lovers - Emma Straub

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Vacationers, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college and what it means to finally grow up well after adulthood has set in.

Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy property, and start families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch - of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool - to their own teenage offspring.

Back in the band's heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her girl-next-door smile, rich-kid Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and beautiful Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose can never be reclaimed.

Straub packs wisdom and insight and humour together in a satisfying book about neighbours and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions - be they food, or friendship, or music - never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us.

Praise for Modern Lovers:

'Straub writes with such verve and sympathetic understanding of her characters ... Reading this novel has all the pleasures of reading one of Anne Tyler's compelling family portraits - but transported from Baltimore to Brooklyn, peopled with aging hipsters (instead of perennially middle-aged folks) and doused with a Lorrie Moore-like sense of the absurdities of contemporary life' The New York Times
'[Modern Lovers] has the smart, cool sensibility of Straub's other novels, and you're sure to love this one just as much' Elle
'[Straub] sets her observational wit on three middle-aged friends (former college bandmates) who find themselves in a crisis of identity as their now-grown children head off to college themselves' Huffington Post
'Wise and often hilarious, Modern Lovers is a testament to how the passions and secrets of our youth can last well into adulthood' Buzzfeed
'[Straub is] a precise and observant writer whose supple prose carries the story along without a snag. Straub's characters are a quirky and interesting bunch. . . it's a pleasure spending time with them' Kirkus (starred review)