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A review by nordstina
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Brandon Taylor continues to mine the college experience in his newest novel The Late Americans in which he interrogates themes surrounding class, wealth, race, gender, and generational differences. In it, he highlights many characters living in an Iowa college town who are loosely connected. We meet poets, dancers, painters, and townies. The novel starts with Seamus, a poet who is struggling to write his next poem, but enjoys being a contrarian in his poetry workshops. An encounter Seamus has in a bar introduces us to Fyodor who works in cattle processing plant who is in a relationship with Timo, a vegetarian who hates what Fyodor does for work. Timo does not appreciate Fyodor highlighted the dissonance of him being against killing animals but being pro-death penalty. Goran is a black man who is adopted into a wealthy family who is in a relationship with Ivan, a former dancer turned MBA student. Ivan has a connection to dancers- Fatima, Noah, and Daw. I could go on with more. These characters have loose connections to one another, causing me to frequently have to reorient myself to how they fit in the larger community picture. Chapters tend to focus on one character at a time.
Taylor's way with words is stunning. There is truly some gorgeous writing here, which is really the star of the book. His focus on verbal and nonverbal actions people take in order to get their emotions across are great. Sex is frequently used as a way to communicate between the men. Overall, I really enjoyed this, but had some minor critiques about it. Taylor writes at length about the interconnectedness of many of the characters, but his strengths really are the men of the book. There are only two female voices (Fatima and Bea) highlighted and they felt rather disconnected at times. Fatima appeared to mostly highlight the wealth gap between her and other students. While I really enjoyed Bea's section, it seemed a bit of an afterthought and not well-integrated. The overarching themes were moving though and all in all I enjoyed and will continue to read everything Taylor writes.
I found this book to be a blurring of the short story and novel concepts- sort of a middle ground between his first novel Real Life and his short story collection Filthy Animals(both great).
Taylor's way with words is stunning. There is truly some gorgeous writing here, which is really the star of the book. His focus on verbal and nonverbal actions people take in order to get their emotions across are great. Sex is frequently used as a way to communicate between the men. Overall, I really enjoyed this, but had some minor critiques about it. Taylor writes at length about the interconnectedness of many of the characters, but his strengths really are the men of the book. There are only two female voices (Fatima and Bea) highlighted and they felt rather disconnected at times. Fatima appeared to mostly highlight the wealth gap between her and other students. While I really enjoyed Bea's section, it seemed a bit of an afterthought and not well-integrated. The overarching themes were moving though and all in all I enjoyed and will continue to read everything Taylor writes.
I found this book to be a blurring of the short story and novel concepts- sort of a middle ground between his first novel Real Life and his short story collection Filthy Animals(both great).