An excerpt from Adam Wilson's debut short story collection, What's Important Is Feeling, which humorously pinpoints our most desperate moments of longing—sexual and otherwise. "Soft Thunder" is a short story about the members of a high school garage band who fall for the same girl and then keep falling.

The twelve stories in What's Important is Feeling follow the through-line of contemporary American coming-of-age: from the ravings of teenage lust, to the soul-deep debauchery of college, and to the stunning loneliness of de facto adulthood—in lovably demented yet incisive prose.