Emma Straub on boy bands, nostalgia, and a voyage of reinvention in her book "American Fantasy"

[00:00:03]Club Galvy is taking you on a cruise with a woman who is recently divorced with an empty nest at home. She goes on a voyage featuring [music] a famous boy band from the '90s and thousands of their middle-aged female fans. What happens on board is the story of the novel American Fantasy. It was a Club Galvy top three thick pick and author Emma Straub joins us now. Welcome.

[00:00:25]>> Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:27]>> to see you and thanks for taking me on my first cruise.

[00:00:31]>> Oh, my my pleasure. My pleasure. And you didn't even feel seasick, right?

[00:00:34]>> It was amazing. And I enjoyed the buffets and I enjoyed all the chaos that was going on throughout the book. So, I hope you had a chance to do some of your own research for this book. Did you go on a cruise?

[00:00:47]>> I sure did. I sure did. I went on um the New Kids on the Block cruise in 2023.

[00:00:56]Um they were my number one loves of my childhood. You know, just the posters covering the room. The poster even I will tell you on the underside of my canopy bed. So, I could just lie in bed and just stare at their beautiful faces.

[00:01:17]>> Really?

[00:01:18]>> Um and yes, I went on their cruise and I was absolutely blown away in in in so many different directions, I think, which really informed um both like the both the humor of this book and also, if I may be so bold, the transcendence, you know, that it's that it's that it's not just it's not just silliness, you know, what these women what the women, the fans, get out of this kind of experience is profound.

[00:01:51]>> Tell me about your main character, Annie, >> Yeah.

[00:01:53]>> which is interesting because she's on the cruise by herself.

[00:01:57]>> Mhm. Mhm.

[00:01:58]>> So, that certainly helped inform her character, I imagine.

[00:02:01]>> Yes. So, Annie is 50.

[00:02:04]She is newly divorced. She is recently empty nested. And she's having trouble at work, I would say. And what I love about Annie is that I mean, first of all, you know, every woman I know right now, it's just perimenopause this perimenopause this, menopause this, >> [laughter] >> menopause that. Um and I and I loved having a character where I could sort of explore some of those changes, you know, like what does it feel like to be in your body now, you know? What what does it feel like to be in your brain now? What does it feel like to be a middle-aged woman now and realize that things are still changing. You know, I think that we're sold a bill of goods when we are young and perky, that, you know, you you check these boxes, right? You get this great job, you get a spouse, you know, maybe you have children, etc. And then you're sort of done making choices.

[00:03:08]But, of course, that's not true. That's not true. We are always growing. We are always evolving.

[00:03:15]Nothing is ever fixed. And that's what Annie sort of really discovers on this cruise.

[00:03:19]>> You know, it's so interesting that you said that because as I was reading it, I was like, well, this is kind of a coming-of-age for Annie.

[00:03:26]>> Yes.

[00:03:26]>> You know, because she is changing and evolving and really being brave, you know? And I think that that's that's something that I have recognized in myself that like the older I get, I'm 46 now, and the older I get, the braver I feel and the more confident I feel in my own choices and decisions. And and I wanted that I wanted that for Annie, too.

[00:03:53]>> Emma, thank you. I really appreciate it.

[00:03:55]>> Readers, if you'd like a free excerpt of American Fantasy, or if you can get the book at clubcalvin.com.