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 national 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.
The Ten Year Affair (2025) Erin Somers "The Ten Year Affair is a hilarious and acutely observed account of early middle life. Somers writes with warmth, wit, and shimmering insight about the failings and strivings of decent people who wake up and find that life isn't quite working out. No other writer at work today is as alert to the comedy of everyday life and to the extraordinary realms of feeling that lie behind that comedy. I never wanted this novel to end. I loved every moment. Somers has written a classic of our era"
Herculine (2025) Grace Byron "Punchy, strange, and sneakily poignant without trying to be overly ironic, Herculine doubles both as a novel and as trans literary criticism."
All the World Beside (2024) Garrard Conley "All the World Beside is a soaring, beautiful novel, at once sweeping and deeply personal. Conley has given us a great gift in this vivid and striking examination of the stories we tell ourselves about who we were and who we are and who we hope to be. Part restoration and part reclamation, Conley's bold new American myth simply sings."
Wild Houses (2024) Colin Barrett "Wild Houses is swift, tender, and honest. It's been a long time since I've been so worried, so heartbroken, so moved by a set of funny misfits. Barrett is one of our keenest observers of the miraculous amid the everyday and of the uncommon beauty of common things, the power of attention. When I finished this novel, I desperately wanted to call Dev, Doll, or Nicky, just to see if they were okay, to see if everything had turned out alright. A brilliant novel."
Idlewild (2023) James Frankie Thomas "Idlewild is an outrageously funny novel that is deeply serious about the joys and calamities of friendship. With rare skill and precision, James Frankie Thomas captures all the laughter, the tears, and the ever-evolving inside jokes that cohere between two people who have finally found each other in the strangest place imaginable. This novel made me want to call my oldest friends, only to realize that the numbers are all changed. Idlewild is a major novel - modern and singular. James Frankie Thomas has written a new novel of friendship for a new world. We're all better for it."
I Meant It Once (2023) Kate Doyle "I Meant it Once signals the arrival of a major talent and voice. These stories are by turns funny, melancholy, wry, and piercing in their insight. More than that, I arrived at the end of each of these stories feeling a little less lonely in a world that seemed a little less dark. Kate Doyle brings a rare confidence to stories about the lonely, the prickly, the aimless, and the out-of-sorts, all told in prose that is lively and beautiful. I loved these stories."
White on White (2021) Ayşegül Savaş "A haunting, irresistible novel. I loved this book for its depth and perception, for its beauty and eerie rhythms, but most of all for its wonderfully dream-like spell. It's breathtaking."
Monster in the Middle (2021) Tiphanie Yanique "A total wonder. Utterly original and structurally thrilling. I am in awe of this novel and Tiphanie Yanique's masterful storytelling. This feels like a modern fable, a contemporary folk ballad full of unforgettable characters who, by the end, felt as familiar to me as family. What a gorgeous ode to love and its power."
Love in the Big City (2021) Sang Young Park "Love in the Big City is a light-streaked and dazzling novel about all the messy riots of young life. This novel made me want to dance all night and fall in love. Sang Young Park writes honestly, tenderly, and with irresistible humor and charm. I miss his characters already."
Intimacies (2021) Katie Kitamura "Intimacies is a perfect novel--taut and seductive. Kitamura has made the existential thriller all her own, and she effortlessly negotiates the personal and the geopolitical with a complex moral nuance. Simply stunning."
Objects of Desire (2021) Clare Sestanovich "Astonishing - one of the best story collections I’ve read in a long time . . . I feel like I've found a new favorite writer - Clare Sestanovich is stylish and skilled, an astute chronicler of contemporary life."
A Lonely Man (2021) Chris Power "A Lonely Man left me unnerved and chilled. To read this book is to encounter a mysterious and shapeshifting stranger. Chris Power writes with masterful dexterity, and this novel reveals his genius for subtle misdirection and pulsing tension. A Lonely Man is a delicate snare of a novel, and by the time you realize that the characters are trapped in a lethal game, you are also trapped and powerless to resist its hold. I was breathless and nervous by the end of it. An alluring and seductive novel."
Libertie (2021) Kaitlyn Greenidge "In this singular novel, Kaitlyn Greenidge confronts the anonymizing forces of history with her formidable gifts. Libertie is a glorious, piercing song for the ages--fierce, brilliant, and utterly free."
These Violent Delights (2020) Micah Nemerever "These Violent Delights is an utterly captivating fever dream of a novel whose tone and atmosphere will haunt you long after you finish. More haunting still is the skill with which Micah Nemerever reveals to us the lengths we will go to in order to be known, to be seen, to be understood. A thrilling first novel."
Daddy (2020) Emma Cline "Cline is an astonishingly gifted stylist, but it is her piercing understanding of modern humiliation that makes these stories vibrate with life...brilliant."
