Adult Teeth

by Jeremy T. Wilson

Overview

A suburban lawyer obsessively searches for her out-of-work husband’s sex doll; a grieving man buys a parrot for the stranger who saved his life; a retired Florida lineman discovers a power more vital than electricity. In his debut collection Adult Teeth, award-winning short story writer Jeremy T. Wilson skillfully presents a cast of compelling characters who grapple with life’s big concerns: marriage, friendship, parenthood, death. With heartbreak and humor, these twelve stories explore the brutal truth that for all these characters, as for all of us, time is lying in wait, ready to punch us in the mouth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948954013
Publisher:	Tortoise Books
Publication date:	10/16/2018
Pages:	244
Sales rank:	925,146
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.61(d)

Editorial Reviews

"Like Lorrie Moore and Bobbie Ann Mason's short fiction, Wilson's stories display subtle humor and a deft ear for dialogue, making for a wonderfully varied and enjoyable debut collection." — Booklist

"The characters in Jeremy T. Wilson's excellent short story collection Adult Teeth are all facing significant life changes, and the outcomes are consistently surprising, entertaining, and revealing...Whether set in a small town in Georgia or in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, the stories make good use of their locations. Descriptions are strong, and dialogue snappy...Adult Teeth is a rare collection." — Foreword Reviews

"I can't remember the last time that a book made me laugh so loud...The fact that Wilson can jump from the mundane to the magical, and somehow keep them both undeniably his, proves that he is an author who cannot and will not remain shackled by what is 'supposed to be.' In this exciting book, Wilson breaks up the tedium of everyday life. Contemporary fiction 'don't get no better than this'..." — newpages.com

"Wilson's stories are their most affecting when [an] element of weirdness or even magic enter. In 'Chopsticks, ' the narrator wakes next to his wife and is literally unable to feel anything. His ennui is funny and intriguing and provides a rich look at a loveless marriage...Irony and humor give lightness to portrayals of familiar and unlikable men." — Kirkus Reviews

"Place—and Chicago, in particular—is important to stories in Adult Teeth, Jeremy T. Wilson's artfully crafted first book. But even more than place, the setting for Adult Teeth is that elusive swath of time sometimes referred to as contemporary life. There is absolutely nothing trendy or faddish about Wilson's work. He's far too slyly comic and shrewd a writer for that. With his keen eye for detail and an ear for theater-quality dialogue, Wilson draws a credible, tangible surface of recognizable Americans coping with the here and now, and then, once he has the surface right, he transforms it by diving deeper." — Stuart Dybek, author of Paper Lantern

"The stories in Adult Teeth are so smart, so fresh, surprising, and often very funny, that as I read them, I kept thinking, 'What will Jeremy T. Wilson offer his readers next?' This is a terrific debut." — Christine Sneed, author of The Virginity of Famous Men and Little Known Facts

"A wise, charming debut collection that turns clear eyes on the particular mundanity of adulthood. Jeremy T. Wilson writes tenderly of characters who—on the verge of carefully built, definitely false grown-up lives—throw lit matches at pools of gasoline, scrabbling for whatever feels true." — Patrick Somerville, author of The Cradle and This Bright River

From the Publisher

2018-08-21

Men approach turning points in Wilson's debut collection.

Some couples here are expecting their first child, and others have suffered recent miscarriages. In both circumstances, the male partners are often at a loss. "Nesting," for example, finds Tate failing to construct the enormous playset he bought at Home Depot and feeling inadequate when his pregnant wife, Megan, builds it instead. In "Leaving Charity," Mac grows resentful when his best friend succeeds where he could not at consoling his wife after her miscarriage. Seeing this, she ends up comforting him. Indeed, male characters throughout are flawed in the same ways. By the time we reach "Everything Is Going to be Okay," midway through the collection, we know what to expect from Doug. The story opens: "Maria is worried about the future, which has Doug worried because usually his wife is never worried. He blames it on the pregnancy, then hates himself for being that kind of guy." Wilson's stories are their most affecting when element of weirdness or even magic enter. In "Chopsticks," the narrator wakes next to his wife and is literally unable to feel anything. His ennui is funny and intriguing and provides for a rich look at the end of a loveless marriage. In "Florida Power and Light," Ed, a sex-obsessed bachelor, has a magical transformation that shifts the story abruptly and strangely. And in "Nesting," Megan's construction savvy is, supposedly, due to guidance from Tate's dead dad. The ghost of the father-son dynamic complicates and deepens the marital conflict. Though some readers might wonder why the female character couldn't have been good at construction without help from a man.

Irony and humor give lightness to portrayals of familiar and unlikable men.

Kirkus Reviews