Short Takes: "Days of Distraction," by Alexandra Chang, and "All Adults Here," by Emma Straub

I am reading (even) more than ever during these pandemic stay-at-home times, and getting behind with posting on what I have read. I don’t always post on every book I read, even in ordinary times, but I want to at least briefly mention the two that I write about today, because I recommend each of them to your attention. First is Alexandra Chang’s novel “Days of Distraction” (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2020), in which a young Chinese-American woman writer in Silicon Valley impulsively decides to move to upstate New York with her boyfriend. There she feels somewhat adrift, but makes some realizations about herself and her gender and ethnicity. I initially was attracted to the part about Silicon Valley (just south of where I live in Marin County and work in San Francisco), but soon was drawn into the story with all its low-key but important daily events and thoughts and new understandings. Chang is an excellent writer, and one cannot help getting caught up in her main character’s story. Next is “All Adults Here” (Riverhead, 2020), by Emma Straub, author of “The Vacationers,” which I wrote about here on 6/8/14, and of “Modern Lovers.” In all three of these novels, Straub writes about families, lovers, and relationships. She often focuses, as she does in this latest novel, on relationships among parents, adult children, and grandchildren. The story is deceptively breezy at times, but then we see some of the darker undertones of the relationships. Interestingly, a New York Times review of Straub’s earlier work compares her work to that of Anne Tyler (“All the pleasure of Anne Tyler’s compelling family portraits”), whose most recent novel I posted about a few days ago, on 6/14/20. I would not have thought of that comparison, and I think the younger writer Straub is excellent but not at Anne Tyler’s level (yet, at least). Still, there is something related in both authors’ preoccupation with, and uncanny understanding of, families and generations and their complex interactions.