Excerpt from American Fantasy by Emma Straub, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I bet," Annie said. She was already tired, and so grateful for her stool. Most women were standing, and Annie's calves and feet hurt just looking at them. The music cut off, and Shawn's voice came through the speakers. "All right, all right. It's game time!"

The Talkers roared.

Boy Talk appeared one at a time in the same spot on the balcony, each guy in turn blown up on the screen above his own head. Terrence was dressed in a giant yellow onesie—a Pokémon. Pikachu! Annie rescued its name from the depths. Annie remembered one staging of Puccini's Turandot where the emperor had been lowered from the ceiling. This was like that, but furrier. Scotty came out next in a similar suit but bluish green. "Snorlax!" a younger Talker shouted from over Annie's shoulder. Keith and Corey came out together, dressed in matching white pants and T shirts with giant red R's on their chests, Keith in a purple wig and Corey in a pink one. "Who are they?" Annie asked.

"They're the bad guys!" Maira shouted. She knew everything and was willing to share her knowledge. Maira's purple and blue streaks twinkled in the lights from the tiki bar, and Annie was glad that women her age had started dyeing their hair funky colors again instead of just coloring the grays, and she was about to say so when Annie realized that she was already drunk, and so she probably shouldn't say everything that crossed her mind. Keith moved into the center of the balcony, posing and laughing. Whose job was it to come up with their costumes? Shawn jumped in behind Keith and Corey dressed as a shirtless Ash Ketchum, a child. Shawn flexed, and at the foot of the stairs, two women dressed like sexy Ash Ketchums, their costumes even skimpier than Shawn's, jumped up and down, and then Shawn rushed down the stairs to greet them and pulled them onto the small stage with him. DJ Pancake played Madonna's "Like a Prayer," and all three Ashes jumped up and down, mouthing the words. Shawn's showmanship was unmatched. The boys at her high school who had had big personalities had always seemed too scary, too popular for her to have a crush on, but Shawn was far enough away that she could pretend.

Keith seemed to be enjoying his purple wig, which was long and fluffy like a guitar player in a different kind of '80s band. Keith twirled the edges in his fingers and flipped the long part back and forth over his shoulder. He was laughing with Scotty and with Shawn. It was funny to think about them as adult men who had actual relationships with each other, relationships that existed in private and not printed on the side of a lunch box. Most of the guys had cups in their hands—the idea, according to Katherine, was that the guys were all somewhere on the tipsy to wasted continuum at these parties, but Annie didn't buy it, not looking at them. They were working, and on these nights, their job was to look like they were having the best time they'd ever had so the women would think that they were having the best time they'd ever had. After all, it was what Shawn had promised them.

Keith turned toward Annie—toward her section—and waved. Without even meaning to, Annie waved back. She was surrounded by other people who were waving back, of course, everyone was waving and screaming, their hands in the air, but still, she was embarrassed. It felt like too much, like stalkerish behavior, even though they were literally all waving back, the entire audience, they could not leave unless they jumped off the ship and started to swim back toward Florida. Keith, of course, wasn't actually paying attention to her. He was dancing goofily to Madonna, pointing his fingers in the air like a real middle aged dad. He had never been a good dancer—that was ammunition for sisterly arguments for years, that Shawn was a better dancer than Keith, and it was obviously still true. He was rocking his hips side to side, almost like bouncing a baby to sleep. Keith pointed kindly at a woman's homemade sign and smiled. He seemed like a nice man. Annie took out her phone and snapped a few pictures for Katherine.

Excerpted from American Fantasy by Emma Straub. Copyright © 2026 by Emma Straub. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.