THE VACATIONERS by Emma Straub

A 2-week vacation in Mallorca could be just the ticket for mending all sorts of family rifts.  Franny and Jim Post are joined by 28-year-old son Bobby and 18-year-old daughter Sylvia.  Bobby’s on-and-off girlfriend Carmen comes along, much to Franny’s dismay, as do Charles and Lawrence, a gay couple hoping to adopt a child.  Charles and Franny are such close friends that Charles even watches Franny bathe, as she seeks his advice regarding her cheating husband. (I have to say that I found this scene to be a little odd.)  Jim has been fired from his job for having an affair with an intern, and Sylvia is reeling from having lost her boyfriend to her best friend.  Sylvia, unlike Bobby, has an inkling of what’s going on with her parents, and their marital uncertainty trickles down to her, further causing her footing in the world to be a little unsteady.  She plans to reinvent herself when she starts college at Brown in the fall, and in the meantime hopes to lose her virginity to her handsome Spanish tutor.  Bobby is the least likeable of the lot, with his churlish behavior and atrocious judgment when it comes to money.  His and Carmen’s relationship is probably the most busted of all, and with good reason.  Charles and Lawrence are the relationship role models here, dealing with their own fidelity issues, discussing Charles’s unusually tight friendship with Franny, and contemplating their future role as parents.  There’s really not that much of a plot here; it’s definitely more of a character study, sort of a multi-generational Big Chill, where some relationships get mended, some get cemented, and some die on the vine.