Key Takeaways
- Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke blends a time‑travel premise with satire of modern “trad‑wife” culture, revealing the melancholy gap between nostalgic fantasies and historical reality.
- Emma Straub’s American Fantasy re‑imagines the cruise‑ship romp as a celebration of middle‑aged women’s right to joy, using a ’90s boy‑band fan cruise to explore friendship, identity, and unapologetic fandom.
- Laurie Frankel’s forthcoming Enormous Wings tackles bodily autonomy and ageism through the shocking pregnancy of a 77‑year‑old woman in Texas, balancing dark humor with fierce commentary on reproductive rights.
- Across the three works, playful premises serve as vehicles for deeper social critique—about gender roles, aging, and the politics of pleasure—showing how escapist fiction can both entertain and provoke.
Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel Yesteryear opens with an eye‑catching premise: Natalie Heller Mills, an online “trad wife” who curates a picture‑perfect pioneer lifestyle for her followers, suddenly finds herself transplanted to 1855. The early chapters read like a light‑hearted fish‑out‑of‑water comedy, as Natalie grapples with the grueling realities of milking cows, churning butter, and sewing by lamplight—tasks far removed from her staged sourdough‑and‑nativity‑scene Instagram posts. Burke uses this contrast to skewer the romanticized notion of a return to “simpler times,” highlighting how the influencer’s curated nostalgia glosses over the hard labor and limited agency that actually defined women’s lives in the mid‑19th century.
Yet the novel quickly deepens beyond satire. As Natalie struggles to survive, she confronts the limited options available to women then—marriage as economic security, limited education, and societal expectations that tether her to domestic duty. Her internal monologue oscillates between fascination with the authenticity of pioneer life and a growing dread of losing the autonomy she cultivated online. Burke’s narrative thus becomes a meditation on aspiration and capitulation: Natalie’s initial excitement about living “for real” gives way to a sober recognition that the past offers little room for the self‑expression she craves. The result is a story that is both humorous and poignantly melancholy, inviting readers to question why modern escapism often romanticizes eras that were far less liberating for women.
Emma Straub’s American Fantasy shifts the escapist lens to a contemporary setting: a four‑day cruise themed around a beloved ’90s boy band, Boy Talk. The protagonist, Annie, a recently divorced 50‑year‑old, is nudged onto the ship by her younger sister, hoping to rekindle a shared teenage passion. Straub populates the vessel with a wonderfully diverse cohort of women—varying in race, political leaning, ability, income, and sexuality—all united by their fervent fandom. Through the eyes of Annie, the cruise’s gay production manager Sarah, and band member Keith (who is also at a personal crossroads), the novel explores how music can serve as a conduit to memory, belonging, and unguarded joy.
A pivotal scene captures Annie’s epiphany amid a roaring crowd: the music becomes a “direct vein to her own childhood,” and she realizes that the collective euphoria around her is not a solitary indulgence but a shared language of empowerment. Straub deliberately avoids mocking the women’s enthusiasm; instead, she frames their unapologetic dancing and singing as a reclamation of pleasure often denied to middle‑aged women in a culture that tells them to shrink, quiet down, and act their age. The novel’s underlying argument is radical in its simplicity: women deserve spaces where they can be loud, foolish, and utterly themselves without justification. By honoring rather than ridiculing fandom, Straub turns a seemingly frivolous premise into a sincere affirmation of female solidarity and self‑acceptance.
Laurie Frankel’s forthcoming Enormous Wings takes a darker, more urgent turn. Pepper Mills, a 77‑year‑old reluctantly settled into the Vista View Retirement Community in Austin, Texas, experiences an unexpected sexual encounter that leads to a medically improbable pregnancy. Despite her doctors’ expectation of a miscarriage, the pregnancy proceeds, thrusting Pepper into a legal and moral quandary: she seeks an abortion, but Texas’s restrictive laws and the media frenzy surrounding her case make leaving the state nearly impossible. Frankel balances the absurdity of the premise—an elderly woman facing an unplanned pregnancy—with a gritty examination of bodily autonomy, ageism, and the politicization of reproduction.
The narrative oscillates between dark comedy and righteous anger. Pepper’s wry observations about retirement‑home life (“bingo nights and bland meals”) contrast sharply with the terrifying reality of being denied control over her own body. As she navigates hospital hallways, protest signs, and invasive press coverage, the novel underscores how reproductive rights are not just a youth issue but a lifelong concern that can erupt at any age. Frankel’s tone invites readers to laugh at the absurdity of the situation while simultaneously feeling the sting of the injustice it mirrors in real‑world legislation.
Together, these three works illustrate how contemporary fiction can use whimsical or fantastical premises—time travel, themed cruises, miraculous pregnancies—to explore serious social themes. Whether critiquing the performative nostalgia of influencer culture, celebrating the unfiltered joy of middle‑aged fandom, or confronting the harsh limits placed on women’s bodies across the lifespan, each novel demonstrates that escapism need not be an escape from reality; rather, it can be a lens through which we examine, question, and ultimately re‑imagine the world we inhabit.