In Emma Straub's buoyant seventh book, American Fantasy, a reunion cruise assembles several people dissatisfied with their lives and hoping to reclaim a sense of possibility.
The Boy Talk 2023 cruise is a five-day route aboard the American Fantasy from Miami to the Bahamas. Thirty-year-old Sarah, head of the Jackrabbit production team in charge of the talent, is nursing a broken heart after her girlfriend left. The other two point-of-view characters are 50-year-old divorcée Annie, a passenger, and Keith Fiore, one of the five boy band members. Keith's older brother, Shawn, is the de facto band leader, eager to prolong the group's success through a world tour. Keith, however, is reluctant. A recovering alcoholic, he'd prefer privacy to live as a normal person and work on his marriage.
At a meet-and-greet, Annie asks Keith if he's okay. Taken aback by a genuine question rather than the usual fawning, he finds himself interested in Annie, and over the next few days they form a connection. Micro-chapters replicate the highly scheduled fun of a cruise. Each night there's another themed party: 1980s, pajamas, prom. The hedonistic atmosphere fosters resentments--and even fistfights--among the band and the passengers.
Compared to the other two protagonists, Sarah gets short shrift, and the round of performances and photo ops can get as repetitive for readers as for the band. Still, this is a potent picture of the downsides of fame and the struggles of midlife. The novel's title is true to the wish-fulfillment nature of the plot, making it a perfect follow-up for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld's Romantic Comedy. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck