Bankers prowl Brook­lyn bars on the eve of the stock mar­ket crash. A debate over Young Elvis ver­sus Vegas Elvis turns exis­ten­tial. Detox­ing junkies use a live lob­ster to spice up their love life. Stu­dents on sum­mer break strug­gle to escape the orbit of a seem­ing­ly utopic com­mu­nal house.

And in the title sto­ry, select­ed for The Best Amer­i­can Short Sto­ries, two film school bud­dies work­ing on a doomed project are left siz­ing up their own tal­ent, hop­ing to come out on top — but fear­ing they won’t.

In What’s Impor­tant Is Feel­ing, Adam Wil­son fol­lows the through-line of con­tem­po­rary com­ing-of-age from the rav­ings of teenage lust to the stag­ger­ing lone­li­ness of pro­to-adult­hood. He nav­i­gates the tough ter­rain of Amer­i­can life with a del­i­cate bal­ance of com­e­dy and com­pas­sion, lyri­cism and unspar­ing straight­for­ward­ness. Wilson’s char­ac­ters wan­der through a pur­ga­to­ry of yearn­ing, hope, and grief. No one emerges unscathed.