Like the superb writers with whom he keeps literary company - Garth Greenwell, Carmen Maria Machado, Akwaeke Emezi, Kristen Arnett - he understands that it is no longer enough to merely allude to sexuality. Visibility matters to Taylor, as a Black man and as a queer man. These 11 stories still involve life in and around academia, as “Real Life” did, with all its attendant types and even, at times, archetypes: sloppy, exhausted dance majors cultural-studies grad students dating townies the nearly invisible roommates who spend all their time in a chemistry lab.
What’s changed in Taylor’s work is not his subjects but his style. After dropping out of his graduate studies in pure math, he proctors exams and tries to overcome his social anxiety by going to the occasional grad-student party. In Taylor’s stunning new story collection, “ Filthy Animals,” several characters still experience that kind of distance - particularly one who appears in many of the stories, a young Black man named Lionel who lives a sort of university-adjacent life in the Midwest. Last year, reviewing Brandon Taylor’s Booker Prize-shortlisted debut novel, “ Real Life,” I mentioned the protagonist’s “emotional distance” becoming “the fulcrum of the plot.” If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.
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