But I think that sort of bombast, especially in male writers, is really just a defense mechanism, or a sneaky way of being sentimental without getting called a sissy. What drew you to this mode of writing?īRANDON TAYLOR: When I first started writing, I loved the bombast of writers like Saul Bellow, John Updike, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, and Pat Conroy. Your novel Real Life and your lit-crit essay “that carver boy be spitting” exhibit an admiration of this modality as well. You’ve written that you’re “interested in the banality of daily life” and have praised the “matter-of-factness” and “open, clear ambiguity” of writers like Alice Munro. Yet they refuse to be merely gnomic and vague, or to avoid plot resolution. SEAN HOOKS: Several of the stories in Filthy Animals seem to resist generic drama and contrived climax. He is a prolific producer of content: Real Life is currently in development for production, with Kid Cudi attached as the lead, and a second novel, tentatively titled Group Show, is slated for release soon. In addition to his two published books, his work is also featured on his Substack platform, called “sweater weather: essays about literature, culture, and so many feelings.” An active participant in social media who is unafraid to wade into discomfiting topics and express complex, multidimensional points of view, this exciting young author has quickly progressed from fellowships with the Lambda Literary Foundation, Kimbilio Fiction, and the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop to a position as an acknowledged, prominent, and much-cited creative force in the contemporary literary scene. In his early 30s, Taylor has achieved a rapid ascent in literary circles.

Plaudits include a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection and shortlists for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.

His work has appeared in such venues as Guernica, American Short Fiction, Gulf Coast, Kink: Stories, O: The Oprah Magazine, Gay Mag, The Literary Review, LitHub, The Millions, Electric Literature, Necessary Fiction, and The New Yorker online. A writer, editor, and essayist, Taylor was born in Alabama and studied chemistry at Auburn and then biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was on his way to a doctorate before shifting to pursue an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

BRANDON TAYLOR’S NEW BOOK - his first short story collection, Filthy Animals, published in June by Riverhead Books - serves as a follow-up to his acclaimed debut novel, Real Life (2020).

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