Emma Straub

"When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days, decades years earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence? Astrid's youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is intentionally pregnant yet struggling to give...

In 'Some People Must Really Fall In Love,' an assistant professor takes halting steps into the awkward, adult world of office politics and blind dates while harboring feelings for one of her freshman students. Two grown sisters struggle with old assumptions about each other as they stumble to build a new relationship in 'A Map of Modern Palm Springs.' Rome is the setting of 'Puttanesca,' as two young widows move tentatively forward, still surrounded...

The author of Bel Canto and Truth & Beauty talks with Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World; The Short History of a Prince) and delves deeply into the backstory of her latest creation, a thought-provoking literary thriller, set deep in the Amazon jungle, with fascinating characters that defy our expectations, and chockful of suspense, romance, and betrayal.