Wild Failure: Stories Audiobook

A dazzling debut collection of ten powerful, feminist, and queer short stories from bestselling author Zoe Whittall

“Absorbing and wrenchingly intimate, with a rare balance of wit and tenderness.”—Jenny Fran Davis, author of Dykette

In Wild Failure, characters encounter feelings of shame, desire, attachment, and disconnection as they find themselves navigating their way through bad decisions, unusual situations, and fraught relationships.

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 nineties strip club after she learns of the death of a former client.

Wild Failure is replete with Whittall’s perceptive humor and acute insights into human nature. It’s also a dynamic and vibrant collection of poetic fiction that contend with the meaning of desire in a world that devalues femininity and queerness.

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"These stories are all about women: wild women, loose women, murderous women, regretful women, and more. These stories are funny, and yet so acutely aware of things you never realized yourself. They all reflect the common theme of desire in a world that devalues femininity and queerness. I read this entire book in one night, and then reread it two days later when I didn’t want to leave my bed. My thoughts have been consumed ever since."

— Betches