Kirkus starred review!

Edgy stories from the heartland!

Olive Kitteridge meets The Secret Lives of Church Ladies in this collection of linked short stories about the residents of a small, Indiana town who reckon with the complexities and delights of community after they all receive a mysterious email.

One foggy morning, an e-mail appears in inboxes across the small town of Lanier, Indiana, population 12,234. “Invitation to Participate: Sex in the Midwest,” the subject line reads. A link leads to an extensive survey, but why has Lanier been chosen? And by whom?

Don Blankman, legendary basketball coach, believes the e-mail and the epidemic of STDs at the junior high are both part of the moral decline of the town. He’s got an oxygen tank and a bum lung from his encounter with Covid, but that’s not going to keep him from taking action.

For Rachel, the bartender at the Main Street Saloon, the e-mail stokes the flames of the mid-life crisis she’s been creeping up on in her post-Covid life, as well as her fears about her gay daughter’s place in the town.

Street by street and house by house, the e-mail opens up the secret (and not-so-secret) lives of one small town, and reveals the surprising complexity of sex (and life) in the Midwest.

”I've not been this undone and awed by a short story collection since The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Robyn Ryle proves that narrative fearlessness, ambition and radical play reach their highest resonance when foundationed on an ungodly talent and stunning skill. It's impossible to say what's more soul-snatching here: the premises or the writing. It's hard to deliver on what feels like an impossible book to imagine. It's harder to make the writing of that impossible book seem easy, or even inevitable. Robyn Ryle does both. The short story and literary sex are somewhere sweating and smiling, so thankful that they are alive, and in union, again.

Kiese Laymon, author of HEAVY

”‘Ah, the Midwest, home of flatness and reticence. Like the people of Winesburg, Ohio, the residents of Lanier, Indiana, harbor their hopes and fears privately, afraid no one else will understand. Robyn Ryle knows her small town inside and out, celebrating the strange and mundane equally. SEX OF THE MIDWEST isn’t about sex so much as love and loneliness, and, ultimately, belonging.’

Stewart O'Nan, author of EMILY ALONE

”Thoroughly refreshing: an astute portrait of contemporary small-town America that's genuinely fun to read.

Kirkus Reviews

“"I've not been this undone and awed by a short story collection since The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Robyn Ryle proves that narrative fearlessness, ambition and radical play reach their highest resonance when foundationed on an ungodly talent and stunning skill. It's impossible to say what's more soul-snatching here: the premises or the writing. It's hard to deliver on what feels like an impossible book to imagine. It's harder to make the writing of that impossible book seem easy, or even inevitable. Robyn Ryle does both. The short story and literary sex are somewhere sweating and smiling, so thankful that they are alive, and in union, again."”

Kiese Laymon, author of HEAVY

”‘Ah, the Midwest, home of flatness and reticence. Like the people of Winesburg, Ohio, the residents of Lanier, Indiana, harbor their hopes and fears privately, afraid no one else will understand. Robyn Ryle knows her small town inside and out, celebrating the strange and mundane equally. SEX OF THE MIDWEST isn’t about sex so much as love and loneliness, and, ultimately, belonging.’

Stewart O'Nan, author of EMILY ALONE

“‘Ah, the Midwest, home of flatness and reticence. Like the people of Winesburg, Ohio, the residents of Lanier, Indiana, harbor their hopes and fears privately, afraid no one else will understand. Robyn Ryle knows her small town inside and out, celebrating the strange and mundane equally. SEX OF THE MIDWEST isn’t about sex so much as love and loneliness, and, ultimately, belonging.’”

Stewart O'Nan, author of EMILY ALONE