In this vibrant debut collection, Emma Straub creates characters as recognizable as a best friend, and follows them through moments of triumph and transformation with hilarity, vulnerability, and quietly dazzling insight. In Some People Must Really Fall In Love, an assistant professor takes halting steps into the awkward, adult world of office politics and blind dates while harboring feelings for one of her freshman students. Two grown sisters struggle with old assumptions about each other as they stumble to build a new relationship in A Map of Modern Palm Springs. Rome is the setting of Puttanesca, as two young widows move tentatively forward, still surrounded by ghosts and disappointments from the past. These twelve stories, filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language that are sure to become Straub’s hallmarks, announce the arrival of a major new talent.