Wild Failure by Zoe Whittall

InWild Failure,characters encounter feelings of shame, desire, attachmentand disconnection as they find themselves navigating their way through bad decisions, unusual situationsand 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 Failureis replete with Whittall's perceptive humour and acute insights into human nature. It's alsoa dynamic and vibrant collection of poetic fiction that contend with the meaning of desire in a world that devalues femininity and queerness.(HarperCollins)

• 52works of Canadian fiction coming out in spring 2024

Zoe Whittall is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. Her books include The Fake, Bottle Rocket Hearts, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, a Lambda Literary Award winner, and The Best Kind of People, which was a finalist for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She's also a writer for the hit CBC comedy series Baroness Von Sketch Show and was a story editor on the sitcom Schitt's Creek. The Best Kind of People is being adapted for film by Sarah Polley. Whittall lives in Toronto.

Interviews with Zoe Whittall

The Next Chapter6:12Zoe Whittall answers the Proust Questionnaire

Zoe Whittall, author most recently of The Fake, on her favourite fictional characters, her greatest fears, and more.

Q13:40Zoe Whittall on her new novel The Fake

Author Zoe Whittall on the charm of pathological liars, and her own experience of dating somebody who faked having cancer.