Book Review: Modern Lovers, by Emma Straub

 I enjoyed this book more than I anticipated, but a giant problem with it that I must get out of the way before proceeding with the rest of the review is that the fictional band within the book is called Kitty's Mustache. I reject this name absolutely. Coming up with decent band names is hard but come on, man!

Modern Lovers is a cute, gentle book about a set of Oberlin graduates now approaching middle age, living in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. They have grown-up careers and high-school age children. Prior to the events of the book, three of them were in a band, the aforementioned Kitty's Mustache, with another woman named Lydia, who went on to have a famous solo career, predicated upon her rendition of a song one of the protagonists wrote, and then died young. The book largely deals with the aftermath of their brief fame and the ways in which they have, or have not, adapted to adulthood and middle-class-ness. Some of the better parts deal with this last issue very deftly, as when the mostly middle class Elizabeth reflects on visiting her boyfriend Andrew's very wealthy family for the first time, and some of the worse parts deal with it not at all, as when another character is revealed to have started a gentrification pizzeria in Mexico.

The parts about music are some of the book's weaker moments. The mechanics of Lydia's ascent from being the singer of a little-known college rock band to major stardom before the age of 27 are left pretty vague, and a lot of the descriptions of her are laden with annoying cliches–including her "27 Club" demise–that make it hard to believe in her as an authentically charismatic figure. 

Overall the book suffers from an inability to settle on tone. In some moments, it seems as though it is gently poking fun at the characters–I'm thinking in particular about a dinner party scene that spells out an exaggerated "hiiiiiiii"–while in others, especially near the ending, it's almost soppily protective of them. Some parts seem to be attempts at satire, like the largely forgettable subplot about Andrew's illegal midlife crisis juice bar, but other parts are totally sincere. I don't hate this lack of tonal consistency but it's a bit unsettling. It's telling that some of the more satirical parts completely slipped my mind after I first read it, close to when it came out, while the more serious moments have stuck with me.