An excerpt from Adam Wilson's debut short story collection, What's Important Is Feeling, which humorously pinpoints our most desperate moments of longing--sexual and otherwise. "Soft Thunder" is a short story about the members of a high school garage band who fall for the same girl and then keep falling.
The twelve stories in What's Important is Feeling follow the through-line of contemporary American coming-of-age: from the ravings of teenage lust, to the soul-deep debauchery of college, and to the stunning loneliness of de facto adulthood--in lovably demented yet incisive prose.
About the Author :
Adam Wilson is the author of the novel Flatscreen (Harper Perennial, 2012). His fiction has appeared in many publications including The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, Tin House, The Literary Review, The New York Tyrant, Gigantic, and many others.
He is currently a regular contributor to both BookForum and The Paris Review Daily. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, Time Out New York, and elsewhere.
Adam holds a BA from Tufts University and an MFA from Columbia University. A former employee of Brooklyn's famous BookCourt bookstore, he now teaches creative writing at NYU and The Sackett Street Writer's Workshop. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat.
Review :
"Immensely satisfying ... Wilson has created a thoroughly lovable slacker, part hilarious, part poignant." - New Yorker
"Adam Wilson's fierce tales of botched dreams, conflicted ambitions and naïve missteps make for a millennial Winesburg, Ohio, capturing all the idealism and cynicism of young cohorts facing tough realities." - B&N Review
"Lyrical and erotic stories . . . The writing is not dark-it's hilarious. . . . This book is a joy ride. Time and again, Wilson tests boundaries and invites the reader to stop, thinking a story has crossed a line, gone too far into promiscuity, indiscretion, taboo. . . . The buoyant comedy and insight of Wilson's prose carries these stories farther and farther past taboo, into sensitive and complicated territory." - New York Times Book Review
"This book is a joy ride . . . The buoyant comedy and insight of Wilson's prose carries these stories farther and farther past taboo, into sensitive and complicated territory." - New York Times Book Review
"With its tales of young men and women who can't quite grow-up, is about addiction, fear, sickness, self-doubt, family and love. But it asks us to respect its dark and damaged characters and to come feel what they feel, even if it's for just a moment in time." - ZYZZYVA
"Getting laughs and pathos from the same work of fiction is a hard thing to do. Adam Wilson's previous book, Flatscreen, did so regularly, with wry observations juxtaposed with a real sense of loss. As good as that book was, his new collection What's Important is Feeling, is even better - bleak scenarios and economic anxiety coexist with awkward sex, failed relationships, and barely sublimated loathing. Wilson is excellent at finding the pathos of characters one wouldn't normally find empathy for: a boorish, recently-laid-off investment banker, for instance. Wilson also mines that same boorishness (or, in other stories, awkwardness or blindness to class) for humor--but he's also able to keep the inherent humanity of these characters, however flawed they might be. That's not easy, and in these stories, Wilson pulls it off again and again." - VOL. 1. BROOKLYN
"Getting laughs and pathos from the same work of fiction is a hard thing to do. Adam Wilson's previous book, Flatscreen, did so regularly. . . . As good as that book was, his new collection What's Important is Feeling, is even better." - VOL. 1. BROOKLYN
"Adam Wilson is a writer on the rise." - Buzzfeed
"Adam Wilson can write. . . and he does so with a certain authenticity and humor that I rarely see. . . . If you enjoy the cohesive element in collections, then I can't recommend this book enough." - LITREACTOR.COM
"Those who like to sympathize or psychoanalyze should find what they're looking for in What's Important is Feeling: Stories. Wilson's characters might be one, probably two, cards short of a full deck, but they are inarguably funny." - VOX Magazine
"The stories in Adam Wilson's What's Important Is Feeling blend humor with emotion." - Vanity Fair
"Wilson showed a keen ability to balance making us laugh and crafting a debut novel that was as warm as it was dark with 2012's Flatscreen. But the book also provided an interesting commentary on contemporary America, which (along with coming-of-age tales) is major theme of this short-story collection. The result is sure to lead you to the same conclusion we have arrived at: Adam Wilson is one of our best young writers." - Flavorwire
"Adam Wilson is one of our best young writers." - Flavorwire
"[A] testosterone- and coke-fueled collection. . . . Darkly funny." - Entertainment Weekly
"This book will bring you back to the wandering, blurred-together days of your early twenties, or, if you're a younger person with creative aspirations, remind you of your very real present." - GQ.com
"What's Important Is Feeling, with its tales of young men and women who can't quite grow-up, is about addiction, fear, sickness, self-doubt, family and love. But it asks us to respect its dark and damaged characters and to come feel what they feel, even if it's for just a moment in time." - ZYZZYVA
"OMFG, I nearly up and died from laughter when I read Flatscreen. This is the novel that every young turk will be reading on their way to a job they hate and are in fact too smart for." - Gary Shteyngart
"If you smashed The Catcher in the Rye into Jesus' Son, you might have something quite close to Flatscreen, a narrative of wayward youth for our beguiled new century on the brink of a discovery we might not welcome." - BookForum
"Five things we emphatically endorse this month ... a laugh-out-loud literary debut ..." - Details
"Eli's narration in Flatscreen is darkly funny..." - Entertainment Weekly
"Comic novelist Adam Wilson makes his swaggering debut in Flatscreen." - Vanity Fair
"Rollicking...Comedy and pathos abound in Seymour's absurdist world, and in Eli's fantasies of a better life that come in the form of hilariously familiar cinematic scenarios in which, for instance, the screwup becomes the star chef. Fans of Jack Pendarvis and Sam Lipsyte will enjoy Wilson's fresh, fantastical perspective..." - Publishers Weekly
