Emma Straub

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their 35th wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

Some people think hats are fancy things you can buy at a dressy store, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But something is missing. Her father, the single parent who raised her, is ailing and out of reach. How did they get here so fast? Did she take too much for granted along the way? When Alice wakes up the next morning...

In 1920, Elsa Emerson is born in Door County, Wisconsin. Her family owns the Cherry County Playhouse, and Elsa relishes appearing onstage. But when tragedy strikes her family, acting becomes more than a child's game of pretend. Elsa marries and flees to Los Angeles. There she is discovered by Irving Green, who refashions her and renames her Laura Lamont. Laura experiences all the glamour of the heady pinnacle of stardom in the studio-system era, but...

The acclaimed bestselling author returns to Symphony Space to discuss her latest novel. Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth tells the enthralling and tender story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. In conversation with Emma Straub (Modern Lovers). An excerpt from the novel will be performed by Alan Alda.