Review: “Other People We Married” by Emma Straub

Over the past few years, writes and readers of short story have been told, time and again, that their craft is dying, a relic of a time before shrinking publishing houses and e-readers of various size, shape, color. In this way, when a new collection is on the horizon, Spidey-senses begin to go wild. In no instance was this more true than with Other People We Married, the debut collection from Emma Straub, who reminded readers from the first page: short stories can be the truest form of fiction writing, a perfect collection of words, carefully chosen, clean, and delivered with conviction.

The first book published by small press Five Chapters (whose editor, David Daley, is a magnet for wonderful short story writing; Straub’s story, “Puttanesca,” was originally published in FC’s digital pages), Other People We Married showcases twelve finely-tuned stories, some with linked characters, others standalone. Many—most notably Laura and Stephen from the aforementioned “Puttanesca”—are battling the collision of external and internal friction, but it is Straub’s use of genuineness and humor to cut the suffocating tension of these characters’ lives that really makes them stick to the reader’s bones. From young Greta in “Abraham’s Enchanted Forest” to Sophie in the novella-length “Fly-Over State” (originally published by FlatmanCrooked), Straub’s characters long for the search, the finding, the Wanderlust of daily existence.

The strongest story in the collection, amongst pages of brilliant writing, is “Orient Point,” the shortest in Other People We Married, and one whose brevity is reminiscent of Raymond Carver or Tobias Wolff. In five poignant, precise pages, Straub conveys a life underwhelmed, a young mother confronting a reality where even her own husband and daughter, Eve, feel like something foreign. “But it wasn’t the two of us that didn’t fit, me and Eve,” the narrator says. “It was only me.” Her words pervade, like the chilling, refreshing waves off Long Island on an unforgiving August morning.

(Emma Straub’s writing has often been featured on fwriction.)