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Emma Straub’s bright new novel, All Adults Here, begins with sixty-eight-year-old Astrid Strick witnessing her long time frenemy, Barbara Baker, get hit by a bus in the middle of an intersection. Barbara’s sudden death shakes loose something in Astrid, a widow who has spent her whole life in a quiet Hudson Valley suburb, Clapham, committed to a life of orderliness and simplicity. Astrid—a decidedly more pleasant but equally witty Olive Kitteridge type—realizes that there are “always more school buses”, and “no time to waste, not in this life.” She resolves to tell her three adult children and grandchildren about the romantic relationship she has developed with her female hairdresser, Birdie Gonzalez. Astrid’s resolution to be more open and affectionate with her children comes at an important moment, when many members of her family are at a crossroads in their personal lives.
Elliot, Astrid’s oldest son, a real estate developer living in Clapham with his wife and rambunctious two young sons, has purchased a vacant property on the Main Street of Clapham, a fact which he is concealing from his mother, given her history of protesting non-local businesses. Elliot struggles with the property, unsure of whether he should sell it to the highest bidder and advance his career, or whether he should accept a lower offer from a charming local business (his mother’s preference). Meanwhile, Porter, Astrid’s middle daughter, who runs a successful artisanal goat cheese farm in Clapham, has become pregnant by artificial insemination. Porter knows that single motherhood is not the path that her mother would have chosen for her, but she is confident in her decision—all the while harboring fantasies that her now-married high school boyfriend whom she is having an affair with will leave his family and raise her child with her.
The youngest son, Nicky, who left the house before the age of 18, starring as a teenage heartthrob in a cheesy film, is now a free-spirit living in Brooklyn with his French model wife, Juliette. Nicky and Juliette’s thirteen year-old daughter, Cecilia (an exceedingly charming character), arrives in Clapham the day of the bus accident to spend a year living with her grandmother and going to school in Clapham after an incident at her school in Brooklyn. In Clapham, Cecilia befriends August, who is in the midst of questioning their gender, and eventually comes out as Robin, a young woman whom Cecelia is eager to protect from middle school bullies. Robin and Cecilia are ironically the most emotionally mature characters in the novel, each of them exhibiting a great deal of courage in difficult situations—the adults in their life have much to learn from them. (Perhaps the delightful Birdie ought to also be included in this bunch of winning characters, a lovely woman who brings much joy to Astrid’s life while helping her along her journey to openness.)
Straub writes her characters with such a warmth and generosity of spirit that their personal dramas feel important but manageable. The novel deals with lots of big buzzword issues—homosexuality, transgender identity, infidelity, abortion—that come to feel much less menacing in Straub’s deft hands. She posits that love and connection are the answer to righting past wrongs. Astrid is full of regrets about the lack of warmth she showed toward her children, especially as a young widow, and questions how many of her children’s struggles are inherited, and whether its too late to mend her relationships with them. True to form, Astrid “wished she could have a printout of all the mistakes she’d made as a parent, the big ones and the small ones, just to see how many of them she could guess (her temper was always shortest at bathtime) and how many she couldn’t”. While each child struggles individually with what they missed from their mother growing up, it is clear their issues can be worked out through conversation and connection. The novel is ultimately hopeful that dysfunctional family life can be repaired as long as both parties are capable of doing some emotional work. Straub has crafted a delightful progressive novel about the American family, with charming characters, clever dialogue, and winning insight into human relationships.