The Vacationers

by Emma Straub (2014) Straub’s second stab at fiction has bookish tongues wagging in praise for her portrait of the dysfunctional Post family (Franny, Jim and son Bobby and daughter Sylvia) on a fortnight getaway from New York to balmy Majorca. The island is not the balm they needed to repair their cracked relationships and becomes the final straw that breaks them. Laced with wry, humorous observations, this breezy literary read is drenched with the sizzling Spanish sun. It’s a mix of languorous ambience and the jumpy energy of the cleverly crafted characters as we join them on this family holiday on cerulean Mediterranean shores.