Emma Straub’s New Novel Portrays Modern-Day Ditmas Park ‘Pioneers’

Emma Straub, best-selling Brooklyn-based author, chose Ditmas Park for the setting of her latest novel because of its obvious charm.

“In Ditmas Park, they can have lawns and big houses with staircases and giveaways and garages, and I thought there could be people playing music in garages, which seems like the most romantic thing in the world to me,” Straub told The New York Times.

Modern Lovers, Straub’s fourth novel, is the story of two couples and their teenage kids and their rockstar past coming back to them. One couple run a restaurant on Cortelyou Road called Hyacinth. The other include a musician-turned-real estate broker for Mary Ann O’Connell Real Estate. There’s a yoga cult in a run down house on Stratford and the kids get up to mischief in the Parade Grounds. And of course, there are regular updates from two local blogs, The Ditmas Park Local Beat and The Q at Cortelyou, according to Ditmas Park neighbor Ben.

The book was released on May 31st, and reviewed by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times. Kakutani places Modern Lovers in a category above the average beach read:

“In these pages, Ms. Straub gives us lots of sharp, unfiltered snapshots of a Brooklyn in the throes of transition — from “a city next door, with its own rhythms and heartbeats” to a borough full of Manhattan transfers and yuppies, a place where there are now tree guards and block parties with bouncy castles for the kids.”

Read the full New York Times review here. And thanks to neighbor Ben, a Ditmas Park insider, for calling out those local connections.