Consequences of Attraction: Stories
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Ages: 18+
Desire draws them together. What follows is never simple.
A brand-new collection of five gay-themed stories by John Stewart Wynne (Lambda Literary Award-nominated author of the novel THE RED SHOES) about how desire re-shapes us. Ranging in locations from East Hampton to the Scottish Highlands to Provincetown and Tahiti, the stories vary in tone—tragic, ironic, mystical—but share an emotional core and a commonality: that getting close changes everything.
A KILLING IN EAST HAMPTON —A story of class, resentment, and suspicion in a young, wealthy, gay married couple’s new neighborhood—where a friendship across generations ends in betrayal.
NARCISSIST—A professor falls under the spell of a beautiful teen who, like the mythical Narcissus, only offers back his own reflection.
WE'RE GOING PLACES—A retired soap star whisks away his young fiancé to Tahiti, but ambition, aging, and the need for visibility follow them around the world.
LOUISE, DON'T GO—Two older women meet in a hotel in the Scottish Highlands and engage in a delicate act of longing and spectral memory, blurring the boundary between past and future.
BLONDS—A young runaway lands in Provincetown and finds comfort in a relationship with a reclusive housepainter—until jealousy unravels everything they’ve built.
These stories explore the shifting ground between love and loss, intimacy and illusion, in quiet storms of tension. Dark, tender, and emotionally precise, they reveal just how far the heart will go—and what it leaves behind.
Reviews
Where Wanting Becomes Taking CONSEQUENCES OF ATTRACTION is a controlled, unsettling collection about what people persuade themselves they are entitled to once desire takes hold. Across five stories, attraction is repeatedly mistaken for permission, intensity for agreement and proximity for consent. The strongest pieces build quietly. Harm accumulates through small choices and unchecked assumptions rather than grand acts of cruelty. What unsettles most is not the violence itself, but how calmly each character convinces himself that wanting something makes taking it reasonable. In several stories, sexual misalignment is one visible fault line: one person wanting more than the other can give, hesitation read as encouragement, imbalance disguised as intimacy. In others, the misalignment is emotional or temporal, with characters projecting futures the other never agreed to inhabit. The underlying failure is the same: interpretation replaces listening. The collection never asks for sympathy on false terms and refuses easy consolation. What stays with you is how plausible everything feels. These are not monsters. They are people who fail to recognise limits — their own and others’. A serious, disciplined collection that leaves a residue of unease rather than revelation.
Great new story collection from John Stewart Wynne, the uniquely talented author of one of my favorite novels, THE RED SHOES. CONSEQUENCES OF ATTRACTION reinforces a feeling shared by many of us who were blown away by Wynne's debut story collection THE OTHER WORLD -- that he is a consummate storyteller with a keen understanding of human nature who fearlessly goes wherever his characters take him while at the same time assiduously avoiding the inclination too many authors have to "explain things" or show how clever they are by adding showoffish "touches" that aren't at all organic to the characters and their stories. Wynne's prose is lean, even inspired, with a classical, lyrical quality that is a distinct pleasure to read or listen to. As for the stories themselves, they are standalones with a variety of locales, plots, and characters, yet after you've read them all you become aware of a delicate thread that links the central characters in a touching and even profound way. The author takes us from the Midwest to Tahiti, from East Hampton to Provincetown, and to the Scottish Highlands for a wonderful change of pace. Some of the stories are tragic, even shocking, another is yearning and wistful, and one is a funny satire of lovers of different ages who cling to unbridled ambitions they won't give up even for the sake of their relationship. Unforgettable tales.
"Beautifully written. John Stewart Wynne is one of my favorite authors. His prose illuminates both characters and settings."
