' Real Life asks questions many of us shy from: Who is entitled to pain? How useful is an apology? Can sharing our feelings free us from them?.

Beyond its status as a testament of political injustice, though, it deserves accolades for its insights into the ways trauma hollows out a person's soul.' - Kirkus Reviews

'The novel, by a staff writer at Lit Hub, has generated a lot of buzz, and its unflinching forays into our culture wars are cleareyed. 'Taylor's perceptive, challenging exploration of the many kinds of emotional costs will resonate with readers looking for complex characters and rich prose.' - Publishers Weekly charged experience.' - Booklist (starred review) 'Breathlessly physical.steadily exciting and affecting. Real Life is a gut punch of a novel, a story that asks if it's ever really possible to overcome our private wounds and buried histories-and at what cost. But a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with a young straight man, conspire to fracture his defenses, while revealing hidden currents of resentment and desire that threaten the equilibrium of their community. 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. Almost everything about Wallace, an introverted African-American transplant from Alabama, is at odds with the lakeside Midwestern university town where he is working toward a biochem degree. A novel of startling intimacy, violence, and mercy among friends in a Midwestern university town, from an electric new voice.Ī novel of rare emotional power that excavates the social intricacies of a late-summer weekend-and a lifetime of buried pain.

Brandon taylor books