Wild Failure: Stories

Whittall (The Fake) delivers a dynamic collection focused on women’s desire and discomfort. In “Half-Pipe,” 15-year-old Morgan gets drunk with her best friend Sandy and has no memory the next day of having sex with a skateboarder named Tyler. Sandy urges Morgan to go out with Tyler and she spends another night with him, only to wake up and find him having sex with her. After she agrees to be Tyler’s girlfriend, she discovers a video online of her first sexual encounter with him, and tries to rationalize the existence of the footage. In “A Patch of Bright Flowers,” up-and-coming queer writer Julia hits on bestseller Bridie at a conference. Unlike Julia’s work, Bridie’s contains no trace of her lesbian identity, and the two discuss the differences between their books and the limits of the marketplace. In “The Sex Castle Lunch Buffet,” Alix reminisces about her stint as a stripper 20 years earlier after seeing an obituary notice for one of her regulars. The memories cause a spike in her anxiety, which she keeps from her therapist, remembering what a coworker said at the club on her first day: “If you fake it, you’ll eventually feel it, your body won’t understand the difference.” Whittall’s raw depictions of her characters’ emotions hit hard. These stories will linger in readers’ minds. (Aug.)