In her debut story collection, Julia Ridley Smith navigates the currents and eddies of desire, sex, love, and relationships.These twelve highly accomplished stories are witty and accessible, intelligent and thought-provoking. A girls' week at the beach prompts hot tub drinking, awkward confessions, and a poignant reconsideration of friendship. A caregiver extracts a small repayment from her elderly patient for his long-forgotten role in the demise of her family. A young woman, new to New York City, finds herself in a complex but tacky love affair and reckons with the unfolding plot of her life. In the title story, a woman plots to conceive a second child while at a convention hotel with her husband and teenage daughter, both of whom have other plans. Smith's stories will beguile and delight readers while at the same time exploring the deep and often difficult ties of family, marriage, and romantic love in modern life.

Author: Julia Ridley Smith
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Blair
Published: 02/06/2024
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 7.40h x 5.30w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781958888117


Review Citation(s):
Foreword 12/27/2023
Publishers Weekly 01/15/2024
Shelf Awareness 03/01/2024

About the Author
Sex Romp Gone Wrong is Julia Ridley Smith's first story collection. Her first book, The Sum of Trifles, is a memoir published by the University of Georgia Press (2021) as a title in their Crux literary nonfiction series. Julia's short stories and essays have appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, American Literary Review, Arts and Letters, the Carolina Quarterly, Chelsea, Ecotone, Electric Literature, the Greensboro Review, the New England Review, Southern Cultures, and The Southern Review, among other places. Julia teaches creative writing at UNC Chapel Hill.