In Wild Failure bestselling novelist Zoe Whittall’s debut collection of poetic fiction contends with the meaning of desire for both intimacy and danger in a world that devalues queer femininity.
In “Oh, El” a dominant woman can’t stop herself from toying with the tender heart of her co-worker. The title story, “Wild Failure” is a doomed love story between an agoraphobic and a wilderness hiker. In “Half Pipe” a teen girl’s heterosexual ambivalence results in chaos at a skate park. A group of idealistic roommates find themselves the subject of a true crime podcast in “Murder at the Elm Street Collective House.” In “The Sex Castle Lunch Buffet” a woman reflects on her brief stint at a 90s strip club after she learns of the death of a former client.
Whittall’s characters navigate shame, attachment, and disconnection in this collection of outsider stories, which were inspired by the new narrative movement.
