Book Review: American Fantasy by Emma Straub
When I heard author Emma Straub was publishing a novel set on a four-day cruise featuring a fictional boy band from the 1990s, I immediately added it to my TBR pile. I’m not afraid to admit I was a New Kids on the Block fan back in the day (Joe McIntyre was “my” guy!). I read Straub’s novels, This Time Tomorrow and American Fantasy simultaneously, and they are completely different stories. But both were inspired by real life—This Time Tomorrow is a time travel tribute to the author’s relationship with her father, novelist Peter Straub, and American Fantasy reflects her experience going on a New Kids on the Block cruise a few years after the death of her father as she was searching for “something that injected pure joy in my veins.”
On her Substack announcing the novel, Straub wrote:
American Fantasy, like This Time Tomorrow, is about time and love and loss. It’s about figuring out who you are, and if you’re okay. (You’re okay.) It’s about loving the past because it was easier and figuring out how to leave things that are no longer serving you behind for an uncertain future. Unlike This Time Tomorrow, it takes place entirely on a cruise ship and there are multiple sex scenes.
If you’re looking for slapstick comedy set on a cruise ship, though, this isn’t it. Yes, there is humor. How can there not be with this type of premise? Grown men and women (affectionately titled “The Talkers,” a riff on the band name, Boy Talk) wholeheartedly participating in cruise ship theme nights and fighting for photo ops with the band members while hooking up in all corners of the American Fantasy lends itself to many humorous situations.
But this book is more than that. It’s a thoughtful exploration of life choices, the crossroads we often face in midlife, and why the nostalgia from our past continues to bring us happiness even in darker moments. We are once again reminded that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, in fact, being forced to sing songs that were popular in 1992 in front of a crowd of middle-aged fans may lead to crippling anxiety. American Fantasy more like literary fiction, with elevated prose and a third-person overview of a colorful cast of characters. The five members of the band could be comprised of members of New Kids on the Block, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys, or 98 Degrees.
Of course, I saw NKOTB reflected the most because they were the ones I was obsessively reading about in Teen Beat and Bop magazines back in the day. In American Fantasy, two of the band members (Shawn and Keith) are brothers, one (Scotty) eventually came out of the closet, another (Terrence) has brought his newlywed wife along for the festivities, and then there’s Corey, the one who catapulted to fame outside of his time with Boy Talk. The members are all firmly ensconced in midlife and handling the transition in different ways, and not all of it is good. Tension is brewing underneath the forced smiles and outrageous costumes the guys are forced to wear each night.
Divorced mom Annie has arrived on the cruise solo, as her sister (and fellow Boy Talk fan) Katherine broke her leg and was unable to make the trip. The two women were planning to celebrate Katherine’s birthday on the cruise setting sail from Miami, but Annie is now alone and paired with a roommate she doesn’t know, a woman named Maira who a lot of the other women on the ship seem to have a big problem with.
The reader also sees the perspective of a millennial named Sarah, who works for the cruise’s production team and has her work cut out for her. She’s set sail with the band before and knows her job requires her to be part project manager, part therapist. Sarah is also nursing a broken heart, having recently been dumped by her girlfriend.
American Fantasy is a juxtaposition of why cruises attract so many people (the chance to leave your everyday troubles behind and escape by the pool deck with the champagne flowing) and the knowledge the real life awaits you just back at the port. While you may be surrounded by thousands of people who share a common love and the chance to have a dance party with the guys you pretended were serenading you in your childhood bedroom, there’s no chance you’ll actually make a real-life connection with one of those guys who graced the album covers, is there? The nostalgia is strong in this novel but so are the real-world challenges facing the characters from all ages and walks of life.