The Late Americans: From the Booker Prize shortlisted author of Real Life

(Hardback)

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The author of the Booker-shortlisted Real Life returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads The author of the Booker-shortlisted Real Life returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads In a university town in the American Midwest a circle of lovers and friends navigate tangled webs of connection as they try to work out what they want, and who they are. Seamus, Fyodor, Ivan, Noah and Fatima are running out of time to decide on their futures, each of them faced with decisions that will complicate and compromise their visions of themselves. As they test their own desires in a series of relationships they are confronted by volatile figures in town, from unruly, vulnerable young poets to a local landlord harbouring a lifetime of resentment. The friends ask themselves and each other- 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

Reviews

Taylor is a sharp chronicler of the body. In The Late Americans, the body is an instrument and an archive, vulnerable to the complicated violence of pleasure and work. -- Raven Leilani, author of Luster
A beautiful, detailed writer, Taylor excels at penning his own expansive, contemporary versions of Victorian novels... The Late Americans is one of his most exciting creations yet. * Harper's Bazaar, *Books to Look Out For 2023* *
Brandon Taylor has both a classic sensibility, expansive and elegant, and a razor-sharp ability to speak to the contemporary moment. The Late Americans is a full expression of his singular talent. -- Emma Cline, author of The Girls
Brandon Taylor writes with such precision and perception that reading his work is an immersive experience: you inhabit his characters, you share their nerve endings. The Late Americans is a brilliant and electrifying symphony of a novel. I loved it. -- Lily King, author of Writers & Lovers and Euphoria
A glimmering study of young humans in brutal times. This novel enthralls like an orchestra tuning, pours with rain, sizzles and glances knowingly from the page. -- Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Gay Bar
Following a group of three friends as they traverse love and life in Iowa City, Taylor's novel examines the intricacies of relationships through an intimate lens, deftly chronicling contemporary loneliness and desire. * i-D, *Best New Books of 2023* *
The Late Americans is a dizzying plunge into the lives of young people making art in America in the era of survival capitalism, grappling over the big questions like they're fighting over a gun. Deep within their ambitions, their pettiness and lust, is the meaning and even grandeur they seek - and whether or not his characters ever find it, Brandon Taylor has. A bravura performance on the edge of a knife. -- Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
Tender and unflinching, tender because unflinching, Brandon Taylor's The Late Americans is written with bristling clarity, wicked wit and audacious assuredness. The moment-to-moment pleasures of Taylor's prose are such that you simultaneously cannot wait to see where he takes you next while being happy for him to take you anywhere. A wonderful book. -- Colin Barrett, author of Homesickness
Brandon Taylor's characters in The Late Americans are obsessed with art, money, integrity, success, survival - and with one another. They can be deliciously catty, but they're also desperate to be loved. And repulsed by that desperation. They are, in a word, human. Taylor realizes each character so fully, with such enviable - and often hilarious - granularity, that it's hard not to feel like I know these people, that I could pick up my phone right now and call any of them. It's the best kind of magic, this book. I'm already rereading it. -- Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell
If you're interested in complex characters, consider picking up this book in May! * Palatinate, *Books to Look Out For 2023* *

Author Bio

Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a US bestseller, was awarded the Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He is the 2022-2023 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He tweets at @blgtylr, where he has 90k followers, and his newsletter can be found at- blgtylr.substack.com.