‘The Vacationers’: Book is restorative, like a good vacation

Though we think of vacations as opportunities to get away from it all, the characters in Emma Straub's new novel bring all of their individual and shared crises with them on a two-week trip to the island of Mallorca.

As befits a summer read, 'The Vacationers” (Riverhead Books, 304 pages, $26.95) is, in the end, an upbeat novel in which the bonds of family prevail over all difficulties.

The vacation seems doomed from the start. Franny and Jim have arrived at their 35th wedding anniversary, a milestone marred by Jim's recent affair.

Meanwhile, their daughter, Sylvia, hopes to lose her virginity on the trip, while her brother, Bobby, has woes both financial and romantic (his much older girlfriend is traveling with him) dogging him.

Charles, Franny's dearest friend, and his husband, Lawrence, also are along, though they are soon distracted by developments stateside as they seek to adopt a baby.

Nearly every heterosexual male in the book - both onstage and off - is something of a cad inclined toward sexual misbehavior.

Straub diffuses the notion that she has a bone to pick with straight men in general in a humorous yet touching scene in which Bobby, upon learning of his father's affair, suggests such behavior (of which he himself is guilty) might be genetic. 'Don't be an idiot,” his father replies.

Franny and Charles' relationship, perhaps the novel's purest despite its tendency to annoy both Jim and Lawrence, is beautifully portrayed.

Charles, who has a long-ago indiscretion of his own haunting his conscience, is both completely honest and wholly loyal to Franny. It's a moving portrait of a long-standing friendship.

As the trip and the book come to a close, forgiveness and kindness are the order of the day. 'The Vacationers” is, like a good vacation, restorative.