Brandon Taylor’s highly praised debut novel, Real Life, gets deep into desire, intimacy, sex, abuse, homophobia, racism, misogyny, love, hate and the blurred lines between friends and lovers. Oh, and let’s not forget cut-throat scientific academia.

Taylor’s novel is loosely based on his own experience as a Black gay graduate student navigating a predominantly white Midwestern campus.  In Real Life – over one intense weekend – readers follow protagonist Wallace and his friends as they navigate complex relationships and struggle with the question: What is real life? 

Hear Taylor read from and discuss what O: The Oprah Magazine called a “blistering coming of age story”and that The New Yorker described as a “brooding campus novel,” and give us his takes on personal and societal challenges. He also speaks briefly about his short story collection Filthy Animals, published in June 2021. (Our talk first aired and was podcast in Dec. 2020; this is an updated 2021 holiday version.)

Photo of Brandon Taylor by Bill Adams

Real Life, Taylor’s first novel, was short-listed for the prestigious Booker Prize, named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, NPR and many other media outlets in 2020.

Brandon Taylor’s short stories have appeared in his collection Filthy Animals, mentioned above, and in many other publications, including Guernica, American Short Fiction, The New Yorker online and The Literary Review. Taylor has graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow. You can follow him on Twitter.

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