A piercing short story collection that explores the feverish hunger and dizzying pleasure of girlhood and queer coming-of-age in a small town, from an acclaimed emerging writer
Set mostly in and around a small working-class neighborhood just outside of New York City, Clark’s stories explore the lives of young Black girls, women, and nonbinary characters, slicing through the filmy veil between adolescence and adulthood, between who they’ve been and who they might become.
D’asia’s friendship with a school security guard is teetering close to inappropriate. Chrissy is looking to play roulette on a trip with her boyfriend but ends up in a hotel room with two strangers. Juju’s mother dresses her up for a meeting with a local music producer. A little sister cringes as her friend tries to hook up with her older brother. A fight breaks out at a party and the video goes viral. A woman can’t stop walking by her ex’s window, hoping to catch a glimpse of all she lost.
With sharp sentences and great affection, Clark excavates the push and pull of desire and power running beneath tender and bare moments.
PRAISE
“A sharp, wily, finely etched debut so bittersweet you can taste it.”—Jami Attenberg, author of A Reason to See You Again
“The collection I’ve been praying for. One that keeps it real, lets people be hot, bothered, messy, unrelieved, funny, and profound. In All This Want (and I Can’t Get None), Clark trades in the rose-colored glasses for something more authentic: first rate stories of young men and women coming to epiphanies in their pursuit of a warm body to kiss.”—Sidik Fofana, Stories From the Tenants Downstairs
“Clark’s work is lush, complex, a little bit sexy . . . Everything you’d want from fiction concerned with the humanness and paradox of being alive.”—Dantiel W. Moniz, author of Milk Blood Heat
“All This Want (and I Can’t Get None) is an ode to Black girlhood in all its forms, each story its own messy, hilarious, profound illustration of desire, friendship, the masks we put on, and the ways we learn to love. T Clark has written a short story collection for the ages: sharp, layered, and abundant with characters so easy to know and love it feels impossible that the next narrator can be equally charming, complex, and inspired; and yet, Clark delivers story after story of yearning girls and women and their relentlessly relatable worlds, expertly ushering us into each story only to long for them as soon as they’re over.”—Leila Mottley, author of The Girls Who Grew Big
“Smart, thoughtful, and so goddamn funny, T Clark’s All This Want (and I Can’t Get None) is a treasure trove of a collection. Looking into these stories felt akin to pressing your eye against the viewsight of a kaleidoscope: every turn of the page brought some fresh new delight. What a stunner.”—Kristen N. Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things