Abstract

Tales of Whoa is a collection of short stories that explores themes of: disappointment; sexual and emotional dissatisfaction; fidelity; and a person’s right to define her own terms of happiness. The stories themselves attempt to move between the comic, the tragic, and the fairy-tale hopeful. The narrator is a thirty-something, female writer whose passion and intellect are often at war with one another as she struggles to find a happy balance in life. Feminist and fallible, the narrator navigates some of life’s trickiest relationship dilemmas in a humorous and accessible manner. In these stories, a woman leaves an unsatisfactory relationship; a writer tries to pinpoint the essence of man while she searches for her own happiness; a first date explores what happens when people ignore their own short comings; a girl’s first sexual experiences are recounted; a woman struggles with the idea that her boyfriend is trying to kill her with food (or love); advice is given for how to have a fake affair with a real celebrity; a woman experiences her own version of a modern day fairy-tale. Each story highlights a moment of illumination, or epiphany, where the narrator realizes something profound about herself or the men in her life. It is a book, gritty and often explicit, that seeks to pull off the veil of embarrassment that covers discussions of sex, and to present things just as they are: awkward; messy; beautiful.