Adam Wilson has a problem with concepts. The author of Fail Sons, a novel about a dead father being transported across the country in the back of a U-haul, finds plot difficult but enjoys the challenge. The result is a book that settles somewhere in the middle, and Wilson says he likes it that way.
“I find plot difficult, but I enjoy the challenge, and I find satisfaction in tweaking the narrative beats.”
The Dead Father Road Trip
Fail Sons follows Scott, whose frozen father is being moved from Arizona to the East Coast. Wilson said the initial inspiration was a road trip he took with his wife from Los Angeles to Denver in 2014, followed by a month at a residency in Woody Creek, Colorado. He had never been to Arizona, Utah or Colorado before, and the project started as a notebook full of observations about the landscape.
His plans to retrace the route became unfeasible after the pandemic hit and he had two kids. Wilson said he relied heavily on the internet and his copy editor, Sarah Lyn Rogers, who caught many of his geographical errors.
Setting the Story in Summer 2022
Wilson chose to set the book in the summer of 2022. The reasoning is simple: the pandemic needed to be far enough in the past that it isn’t the main event.
One character, Scott’s brother Nick, is still very anxious about catching Covid. Wilson said the joke started as a throwaway — a man wearing a KN95 mask in a red-state Walmart — but it ended up driving the plot more than he expected.
“The pandemic screwed up everyone’s lives in different ways,” Wilson said. “Single people had very different pandemics than married people, and married people with no kids had very different pandemics than married people with kids.”
A Fragmented Form
The novel is told in a more broken way than Wilson’s previous books, with lots of white space on the page. He said he was trying to mimic Mary Robison’s Why Did I Ever, a book he loves for its sense of irresolution.
“I find plot difficult, but I enjoy the challenge, and I find satisfaction in tweaking the narrative beats,” Wilson said.
The Sweet Spot Between Novels
Wilson’s career follows a clear arc. His first novel, Flatscreen, is described as his least high-concept book. His next novel, Sensation Machines, is his most high-concept. Fail Sons sits in the middle.
He also published a story collection, What’s Important Is Feeling, which he describes as decidedly low concept compared to all three novels.
Plot and Concept
Wilson was unsure whether plot and concept are necessarily connected. He pointed to books that have big ideas but no plot, and others that have strong engines but thin ideas.
As for pressure to add plot, Wilson said he enjoys the challenge. He finds plot difficult, but he enjoys tweaking the narrative beats.
The Vulnerability of Aging
Wilson said writing about aging bodies requires vulnerability. He also mentioned Knicks fever and how much Stanley Elkin is too much Stanley Elkin, among other topics.
The exchange was condensed and edited for length, but the core questions covered the book’s structure, its setting, and Wilson’s approach to writing.
Key Facts
- Book: Fail Sons by Adam Wilson
- Length: 224 pages
- Setting: Cross-country trip from Arizona to the East Coast
- Time period: Summer of 2022
- Previous novels: Flatscreen, Sensation Machines
- Story collection: What’s Important Is Feeling
- Research: Based on a 2014 road trip from Los Angeles to Denver and a month in Woody Creek, Colorado
The book is a comedy about family, but it’s also about living through a strange moment in American history. Wilson’s tight writing and his willingness to look at places as an outsider make Fail Sons his most focused novel yet.
Source material: “Adam Wilson on Plot vs. “Concept” (and Why He’ll Never Write a Yankees Fan),” Literary Hub.
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