Before Brandon Taylor’s excellent novel Real Life was published, I knew him mostly through his thriving Twitter feed, but his debut is a pleasure to sink into: a campus novel about a queer Black grad student from the South coming to terms with the whiteness of his environment. Wallace, the main character, has the kind of interactions with his peers that novels are made for – kinetic, uncomfortable, honest – and that are so well written I felt like I was watching the events, rather than just reading the prose. This book operates on many levels – and I assure you there is one for you here – whether you are in it for the portrait of academic life, the precision of the characters or Real Life’s lingering descriptions of what it is like to be Black in a place that insists, wrongly, that it is a bastion of progressive values.
"Before Brandon Taylor’s excellent novel Real Life was published, I knew him mostly through his thriving Twitter feed, but his debut is a pleasure to sink into: a campus novel about a queer Black grad student from the South coming to terms with the whiteness of his environment. Wallace, the main character, has the kind of interactions with his peers that novels are made for – kinetic, uncomfortable, honest – and that are so well written I felt like I was watching the events, rather than just reading the prose. This book operates on many levels – and I assure you there is one for you here – whether you are in it for the portrait of academic life, the precision of the characters or Real Life’s lingering descriptions of what it is like to be Black in a place that insists, wrongly, that it is a bastion of progressive values."
"It’s a new take on the campus novel. Another author who’s somehow pulled off this brilliant book on his first go. Well, the thing with debut writers is that you don’t know how many novels they’ve tried before this first one was published . Real Life is about the racism , homophobia and alienation faced by a young man from Alabama, going to a Midwestern university to do a biochemistry degree – the micro-aggressions he faces on a daily basis, and how he maintains his own identity. It’s deeply affecting and emotional, examining desire and pain and grief, memory and fantasy, things from the protagonist’s childhood, as well as the present – while asking the question: ‘What is real life, anyway?’ Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It’s a skilfully written book that isn’t necessarily always easy to read, isn’t always painless. But it’s fresh and compelling and it well deserves its place on the shortlist. These books have demonstrated their power to engage and entrance five very different judges, and made us care about what happens next. You know, there are so many books that we’ve had to say goodbye to, and there’s a lot of interesting material in those books. I hope that people will read more than six novels a year, because there are so many books being published every week – as you know – and different books serve a wide, global readership. So we’re not saying, don’t read anything else; we’re saying, yes, read these six books – in fact, read the 13 on the longlist – and definitely read the one that eventually wins. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter But when you’ve finished that, listen – there are other books you will also enjoy. Many publishers on this list – and many publishers not on this list – have been producing books that should be reaching a bigger audience. So I think rather than focus on the books on this list, we can all champion and enjoy and share the books we care about. It shouldn’t be about saying ‘read this’ and ‘don’t read that’ – just keep reading. As a species we have always told stories to define our existence and for these reasons, we must all just keep on reading, learning and sharing to develop our innate love of the word. Why not start with these books?"
The Best Fiction of 2020: The Booker Prize Shortlist ·
fivebooks.com
