Adam Wilson on Plot vs. “Concept” (and Why He’ll Never Write a Yankees Fan)

Adam Wilson’s novel Fail Sons centers on a darkly comedic road trip where a dead father, preserved through cryonics, is transported 2,000 miles in a U-Haul truck. Despite its unusual premise, the book explores relatable themes such as family dynamics, aging, and the pressures of modern life in the United States. At just 224 pages, it is described as Wilson’s tightest, funniest, and most emotionally moving work to date. Critics and the author categorize it as a midlife-crisis novel, reflecting the anxieties of middle-aged characters navigating personal and societal challenges. The story balances humor with deeper reflections on parenthood, sibling relationships, and the absurdity of contemporary America. The novel’s fragmented structure, featuring significant white space and short, punchy scenes, enhances its readability and propels the narrative forward.

The novel’s cross-country journey from Arizona to the East Coast was inspired by a 2014 road trip Wilson took with his then-girlfriend, now wife, from Los Angeles to Denver. While he had visited Colorado before, the trip exposed him to new landscapes in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, which became central to the book’s setting. Wilson initially planned to retrace the route after his first son was born in 2017, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the birth of his second child made this impractical. Instead, he relied on online research and the expertise of his copy editor, Sarah Lyn Rogers, to refine the geography. Wilson intentionally wrote the novel as an outsider, with the narrator, Scott, observing locations from the perspective of a traveler rather than a local. The book is set in the summer of 2022, a deliberate choice to reflect a time when the pandemic’s immediate impact had faded but its lingering effects were still felt. This context adds tension, particularly through the character of Scott’s brother, Nick, who remains anxious about COVID-19, contrasting with Scott’s more relaxed attitude.

Wilson structured Fail Sons with significant white space and fragmented scenes to create a fast-paced, engaging read. He drew inspiration from Mary Robison’s novel Why Did I Ever, which uses short sections and unresolved jokes to build a sense of irresolution. Wilson’s approach allows him to jump between the present and Scott’s past without lengthy transitions, while also accommodating brief, impactful scenes. He describes himself as someone who finds plot challenging but enjoys refining narrative beats to maintain reader interest. Wilson clarifies that plot and concept are not inherently linked; a novel can be high-concept without being plot-driven, as seen in works by Franz Kafka, or plot-driven without being high-concept, like those by Thomas Hardy. He also notes that while his earlier novels varied in concept, Fail Sons strikes a balance between the two extremes.

A distinctive feature of Fail Sons is its unflinching portrayal of bodily functions, particularly Scott’s struggles with bladder issues and visits to urologists. Wilson intentionally included these details to reflect the physical decline associated with aging, contrasting it with the decay of the cryonically frozen father in the U-Haul. He highlights the lack of male-authored literature addressing such themes, noting that men often focus on heart problems or erectile dysfunction when writing about bodily decline. Wilson aimed to broaden this conversation by depicting other forms of bodily failure, emphasizing the vulnerability required to write about such topics. His editor pushed back on the inclusion of excessive references to Stanley Elkin, a writer Wilson admires, but the final version retained a significant amount of material about Scott’s bodily experiences.

Wilson’s experience as a father deeply influenced Fail Sons, though he notes that it typically takes him five to ten years to process life events into fiction. His oldest son is eight years old, and Wilson has only recently begun to reflect on parenthood in his writing. He expresses a desire to avoid clichés about Brooklyn dads and to capture the complexities of millennial parenting in a fresh way. While Scott, the narrator, is not yet a parent, his brother Nick is, and Wilson credits his own fatherhood with helping him authentically depict Nick’s character. The novel explores the transition into fatherhood and the emotional adjustments that come with it, though Wilson avoids directly autobiographical storytelling.