Books & Java

The Vacationers

by Emma Straub

 

Synopsis:

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

This is a story of the sides of ourselves that we choose to show and those we try to conceal, of the ways we tear each other down and build each other up again, and the bonds that ultimately hold us together. With wry humor and tremendous heart, Emma Straub delivers a richly satisfying story of a family in the midst of a maelstrom of change, emerging irrevocably altered yet whole.

My Review: 

 
I really enjoyed this book. It was the perfect summer read. The post family is at the crossroads of a major life-change. Sylvia Post, their 18 year old daughter just finished high-school and is off to college in the Fall. Jim Post, the father, just retired from a job he loved and which he had held since he was 25 years old. Bobby Post, is the 26 year-old son who seems to live a dream life in Miami as a real-estate investor with his much older girlfriend - Carmen, a Cuban-American personal fitness instructor. Franny Post, is Jim's wife and Bobby and Sylvia's mother. She's a 50-something wife and food writer for whom middle-age has unexpectedly sneaked-up on and threatened her comfortable Manhattan life. In an effort to bring some normalcy to the soon-to-change and quickly crumbling life of the Posts they embark on a 2-week family vacation in Palma, Mallorca. There, they find they have to deal with all of the disappointments, mistakes, bad decisions, unwise choices they have each made that has brought chaos to the otherwise seemingly-perfect Post family. In Mallorca, they are joined by Franny's best friend Charles and his husband Lawrence. Charles and Lawrence are coping with natural insecurities of any wedded couple on top of the fact that all of their friends have already adopted babies and they have been trying unsuccessfully for several years. The toll of the desire to be parents and the disappointment of not being selected for a baby yet is weighing heavy but their relationship is the healthiest of everyone in the group.

The book was enjoyable because I felt like a fly on the wall in the life of the Posts. Knowing all of their secrets before everyone was aware. Each character is neurotic in their own way but surprisingly normal. Kind of like when you think your own life is neurotic but soon you find that your friends and even strangers that seem otherwise "normal" are just as neurotic as you. Not to mention the beautiful descriptions of Mallorca and the amazing foods they eat while they are there. There are many funny parts in the book and the dialogue is witty. It reminded me of that same wit that Maria Semple delivers in Where'd You Go Bernadette (one of my favorite books by the way). I was surprised to see that this book had ratings in the low 3.3's as I definitely found it to be entertaining and a truly satisfying read. Perhaps because sometimes we like to see that others who seem to lead perfect lives are just as crazy as you. It makes what we used to refer to as dysfunctional a much more functional kind of life that you don't have to feel has to be seen by others as "perfectly and enviably" normal.