A review by marjoleinvanderspoel
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad 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

4.5

Brandon Taylor is possibly the best writer of our generation. And yet, this is not his strongest work. These are some of my jumbled, incoherent thoughts upon finishing it. The writing is so so good, most of the characters are really interesting, but the chapters about women were such a disappointment and the connections between the chapters is tenuous at best. Caught somewhere between short stories and a novel, it felt like this book wanted to express many things but in the end it didn't really... go anywhere. I could identify an overarching theme of how your predetermined living conditions affect your life choices or lack thereof (there was a lot of focus on class but also for instance adoption, traumas and injuries which alter your perception of and course in life). I think Taylor does a great job of writing characters caught in between big decisions and that definitely shines here, and his characters also feel very real in that they make shitty choices sometimes, but I just wished there was something more to tie the stories together somehow. No wonder Seamus felt like the strongest character when he was the only one who got more than one chapter, and yet his story still felt unfinished. But so is life, a story as of yet unfinished. Excited to see what Taylor does next!
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