Minor Black Figures

A FINALIST for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award <BR>  <BR>“A blistering coming of age story” —O: The Oprah Magazine <BR><BR>Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Public Library, Vanity Fair, Elle, NPR, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Harper's Bazaar, Financial Times, Huffington Post, BBC, Shondaland, Barnes & Noble, Vulture, Thrillist, Vice, Self, Electric Literature, and Shelf Awareness<BR><BR>A novel of startling intimacy, violence, and mercy among friends in a Midwestern university town, from an electric new voice.<BR> <BR>Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.  <BR>  <BR> Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power, a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds, and at what cost.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER <BR><BR>WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE<BR><BR>SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE<BR><BR>NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY USA TODAY, NPR, VULTURE, MARIE CLAIRE, THE TIMES OF LONDON, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY<BR><BR>A group portrait of young adults enmeshed in desire and violence, a hotly charged, deeply satisfying new work of fiction from the author of Booker Prize finalist Real Life <BR><BR>In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty.<BR><BR>One of the breakout literary stars of 2020, Brandon Taylor has been hailed by Roxane Gay as “a writer who wields his craft in absolutely unforgettable ways.” With Filthy Animals he renews and expands on the promise made in Real Life, training his precise and unsentimental gaze on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating, Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.

A painter. A priest. One hot New York summer.'A genuinely swoony summer romance' New York Times'Brilliant' Raven Leilani'Stunning' ObserverWyeth is a newcomer to New York, a young Black painter who is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art scene. He shares a studio with his friends and earns money working for a gallery and an art restorer but he's struggling with his portrait painting, unable to truly capture the life of his subjects.Then he meets Keating, a white former priest struggling with his faith. The two men seemingly have nothing in common, and yet Keating shows Wyeth how to see the world anew. But as the men grow closer, the differences between them become more stark, until Wyeth and Keating must decide what they are willing to risk - for art and for love.'One of the most perfect books I've ever read' NPR'A piercing, precise, and affecting tale of young love and high art' Kirkus'One of the most accomplished, important novelists of his generation' Guardian'Brandon Taylor is without a doubt our laureate of hyper-intelligent yearning - nobody does it better' Lit Hub

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER<BR><BR>NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE, ELLE, OPRAH DAILY, THE WASHINGTON POST, BUZZFEED AND VULTURE<BR><BR> “Erudite, intimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth’s promise, of the quest to find one’s tribe and one’s calling.” —Leigh Haber, Oprah Daily<BR><BR> The Booker Prize finalist and widely acclaimed author of Real Life and Filthy Animals returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads<BR><BR>In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” These four are buffeted by a cast of artists, landlords, meatpacking workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of the city, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence. Finally, as each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.<BR><BR> A novel of friendship and chosen family, The Late Americans asks fresh questions about love and sex, ambition and precarity, and about how human beings can bruise one another while trying to find themselves. It is Brandon Taylor’s richest and most involving work of fiction to date, confirming his position as one of our most perceptive chroniclers of contemporary life.

'Funny, merciless, brilliant . . . I loved it' CURTIS SITTENFELD<BR>Seamus, Fyodor, Ivan, Noah and Fatima are running out of time to decide on their futures, in the new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of Real Life.<BR><BR>In a university town, a circle of lovers and friends navigate tangled webs of connection while they try to work out what they want, and who they are.<BR><BR>As they test their own desires in a series of relationships, these young men and women ask themselves and each other: what is the right thing to stake a life on? Work, love, money, dance, poetry? And what does true connection look like, in an age of precarity?<BR><BR>'A constellation of characters shines in [this] campus-set tale of aspiring artists' Financial Times<BR><BR>'Intimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth's promise' Oprah Daily<BR><BR>'Elegant and razor-sharp' EMMA CLINE<BR><BR>* A Daily Telegraph and FT Book of the Year *<BR>

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'Funny, merciless, brilliant... I loved it' CURTIS SITTENFELD, bestselling author of Romantic Comedy<BR><BR>Seamus, Fyodor, Ivan, Noah and Fatima are running out of time to decide on their futures<BR><BR>In a university town in the American Midwest, this circle of lovers and friends ask themselves: what is the right thing to stake a life on? Work, love, money, dance, poetry? Is love possible without harm? And what does true connection look like in an age of precarity?<BR><BR>The author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Real Life returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women trying to work out what they want, and who they are.<BR><BR>***A DAILY TELEGRAPH AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023***<BR><BR>'Taylor is a sharp chronicler' RAVEN LEILANI, author of Luster<BR><BR>'Assures Taylor's position as one of the most important novelists of his generation' GUARDIAN