49
the family station wagon
without a seat belt. “Now,
if my kids are unbuckled,
I’m like climbing over
the seat on the Gowanus
Expressway,” she says.
She wanted to explore
multiple generations of a
family in All Adults Here to
unpack how the way we’re
parented informs the way
we eventually parent our own kids. “We
all want total approval and acceptance
from our parents,” she says. “That’s
what all three of the adult children in
the novel are striving for. Do they get
it? Sometimes. If they always got it, it
wouldn’t be very interesting.”
Straub also probes the gaps between
appearances and what happens behind
closed doors. Externally, the Stricks ap-
pear blissfully loving and supportive.
“No one would look at this family and
think there were any sort of issues—but
of course everyone has issues,” she says.
In breaking down the unconditional
way a parent loves a child, and the
grown child loves the parent in return,
Straub illuminates just how normal it
starry guests, has been surviving, thanks
to an outpouring of support from loyal
customers. The store is also hosting
several virtual events, where authors can
connect with fans and read from their
books. Straub, who is responsible for
buying most of the books coming into
the store, is receiving enough online
orders to stay afloat for now.
And, as disappointed as she is about
how plans to launch All Adults Here
have changed, she’s thinking more
about other writers, particularly those
publishing debut books right now after
years of work. “This is a major ‘I want
everyone to win’ situation,” she says,
scooping up her cat, Killer, and placing
her over her shoulder. “I want people
to buy any book from any bookstore.
It doesn’t have to be my book from
my bookstore.”
Her role as a bookseller gives her
hope: because what people need now
more than anything, she believes, are
books. “What are we all doing in our
quarantines?” she asks. “We’re figuring
out how to walk out the door without
walking out the door. Reading a book is
the best way to do that.” □
is to feel disconnected from the
people we should know better
than anyone else.
In another realIty,
Straub would be dividing her
time between the store and
preparations for weeks on the
road for her book tour, but
the coronavirus outbreak has
put everything on pause. You
can hear the disappointment in her
voice. It would have been her first tour
as a bookseller as well as an author.
“Going to independent bookstores
across the country is one of my only
hobbies,” she says. “I’m really sad not
to be able to do it, especially now that I
connect with these bookstores on this
other level.”
And in March, Straub shut Books
Are Magic to the public, per the state’s
orders to temporarily close nonessential
businesses. In the weeks leading up to
the order, she was in contact with other
independent booksellers, all trying to
prepare for a possible hit to the already
unstable business. Books Are Magic, a
darling of social media and often host to
△
Books Are Magic, currently closed to the public, opened in 2017
COURTESY BOOKS ARE MAGIC
