Book Review: 'Other People We Married' by Emma Straub

Originally published in Specter Literary Magazine, my review of Emma Straub’s Other People We Married, re-released this week by Riverhead Books.

Other People We Married showcases twelve finely-tuned stories, some with linked characters, others standalone. Many—most notably Laura and Stephen from the aforementioned “Puttanesca”—are battling the collision of external and internal friction, but it is Straub’s use of genuineness and humor to cut the suffocating tension of these characters’ lives that really makes them stick to the reader’s bones. From young Greta in “Abraham’s Enchanted Forest” to Sophie in the novella-length “Fly-Over State” (originally published by FlatmanCrooked), Straub’s characters long for the search, the finding, the Wanderlust of daily existence.

(Straub will read from the collection on March 8, 2012, at Upstairs at the Square.)