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

So often, the word nostalgia felt coated in bile—a nostalgia act. Annie understood and she didn't. Nostalgia was for the Smurfs, for erasers that smelled like strawberries. Maybe that was what the costumes were about, the goofy T shirts, but inside her head, which is where she heard the music, it had touched some lever so deep that it couldn't be reversed, as much as she'd chosen to ignore it. Maybe that was nostalgia after all, that the music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life. What had the research shown? A shortcut to happiness. Music made plants grow faster; it made cows give more milk. They meant Mozart and Puccini, sure, but why couldn't it also mean this?

There were so many people crammed into such a tight space. Shawn twirled around, hooking his arm around his brother's waist, and then they spun in circles, laughing, a square dance for two. All around Annie, women were dancing and singing, and for a second, she closed her eyes and thought, No one else will ever understand this, except of course everyone standing beside her, who all understood it perfectly. This was why people turned to religion or watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar instead of alone in their living room. It felt good to be a part of something where your passion was celebrated instead of mocked. They were all in this together, the men and the women, a symbiotic organism. Annie was tired, but she knew that there was no going to bed, not yet.

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.