TIME

The world of Emma Straub

TEN MINUTES INTO MY VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH the author Emma Straub, I’m chatting with her husband Mike. This Google Hangout is supposed to be about Straub’s new novel, but it turns out Mike and I have the same hometown, and our eyes are bright with the thrill of meeting someone new whom we can talk to about something besides the pandemic. Soon after he leaves and Straub and I are back on track, talking fiction and family, she pauses. “Hold on,” she says, “we have a 6-year-old who is about to come in.” And so it goes.

Like many parents, Straub, 40, is homebound and juggling two jobs. While she promotes her new book, and helps manage new challenges for the bookstore she and her husband own in Brooklyn, she is also homeschooling her two

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from TIME

TIME4 min read
A Jumbled Parable With A Glowing Core
Even when a movie is far from perfect, you can tell when a director has poured his soul into it. Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man—he’s also the movie’s star—is trying too hard, and for too much. It wants to be a political allegory, a somber s
TIME4 min read
Nemonte Nenquimo
Someone recently asked me why it was important to protect the Amazon rainforest from oil drilling. The question made me angry. Can you imagine being questioned about the importance of protecting your home from being destroyed in a fire? Or about prot
TIME3 min read
Stepping Up
Where do you find influence in 2024? You can start with the offices of the Anti-Corruption Foundation in Vilnius, Lithuania, where TIME met with Yulia Navalnaya earlier this spring. There, the activist is working with 60 supporters—whose anti-Kremlin

Related Books & Audiobooks