NEW YORK – As a kid, novelist Emma Straub loved New Kids on the Block. In her mid-40s, that lingering fandom led her to a boy band nostalgia cruise. And befriending Joey McIntyre. For research purposes, of course.
Aboard the NKOTB cruise in 2023, the “All Adults Here” author mingled, partied and sang with 3,000 Blockheads there to see Jonathan, Jordan, Joey, Donnie and Danny in real life. This act of embracing the inner fangirl at any age is the basis of her seventh book, “American Fantasy” (out now from Riverhead Books). In it, 50-year-old Annie embarks on a ‘90s-era boy band cruise alone after her sister backs out. Newly divorced and an empty nester, it’s in the company of feverish fangirls that she’s able to reawaken a long-buried part of herself.
We don’t often take teenage girls or their interests seriously. Whether it’s bands, celebrities or media (see the campy masterpiece “Twilight”), polite society sneers at screaming fans of any age or gender. They’re rabid. Hysterical. Obsessed.
But they also get the job done. Who else could build lucrative careers as “professional fan” content creators on social media? Or run general admission lines like the Navy, so respected that even the venues honor the fan-made system?
