Minor Black Figures - by Brandon Taylor (Hardcover)

About the Book

"New York simmers with heat and unrest as Wyeth, a painter, finds himself at an impasse in his own work. After attending a dubious show put on by a collective of careerist artists, he retreats to a bar in the West Village where he meets Keating, a former seminarian. Over the long summer, as the two get to know each another, they talk and argue about God, sex, and art. Meanwhile, at his job working for an art restorer, Wyeth begins to investigate the life and career of a forgotten, minor black artist. His search yields potential answers to questions that Wyeth is only now beginning to ask about what it means to be a black artist making black art amid the mess and beauty of life itself"--

Book Synopsis

A bold novel about a black painter caught up in the currents of art, faith, and desire.

New York simmers with heat and unrest as Wyeth, a painter, finds himself at an impasse in his own work.

After attending a dubious show put on by a collective of careerist artists, he retreats to a bar in the West Village where he meets Keating, a former seminarian. Over the long summer, as the two get to know each another, they talk and argue about God, sex, and art.

Meanwhile, at his job working for an art restorer, Wyeth begins to investigate the life and career of a forgotten, minor black artist. His search yields potential answers to questions that Wyeth is only now beginning to ask about what it means to be a black artist making black art amid the mess and beauty of life itself.

As he did so brilliantly in the Booker Prize finalist Real Life and the bestselling The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor brings alive a captivating set of characters, this time at work and at play in the competitive art world. Minor Black Figures is a vividly etched portrait, both sweeping and tender, of friendship, creativity, belief, and the deep connections among them.

Review Quotes

Praise for Minor Black Figures

"Taylor's most accomplished novel -- a sustained, idiosyncratic portrait of an artist."--The New York Times Book Review

"Dazzling. . . a poetic meditation on Black art, friendship, young love and intimacy."--USA Today

"A sharp, resonant novel about a young Black gay painter adrift in New York who spends one life-changing summer grappling with questions of faith, desire, and creative purpose."--Bustle

"Brandon Taylor is always a must-read, and his newest, Minor Black Figures, is another masterpiece... It's a moving, thoughtful take on friendship, love, and art."--Town & Country

"Mesmerizingly detailed. . .this novel of ideas about art, selfhood, and faith is also a romance, a friendship story, and an enjoyable slice of one hazy Manhattan summer."--Booklist, STARRED review

"Contemplative and sensuous [with]... the shape of a romance... Taylor is onto something rich and appealing--a story unafraid to foreground love and lust, and that treats emotional ambiguity as a starting point, not as the fuzzy ending common in literary fiction. A piercing, precise, and affecting tale of young love and high art."--Kirkus, STARRED review

"Brandon Taylor is without a doubt our laureate of hyper-intelligent yearning--nobody does it better."--LitHub

"There's much to admire in this portrait of an artist in flux."--Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Late Americans

"Exquisitely sensitive . . . with flashes of beauty." --The New York Times

"Startlingly original." --The Wall Street Journal

"A delicious read." --NPR

"The best writer on work in America today." --Garth Greenwell

"Compelling in its determination to capture the tenderness of aspiring artists, their desperate ambition and crushing uncertainty. . . . The Late Americans is remarkable. If you're going to write about art, the folly of pursuing it and the irrefutable power of it, you should probably do it well. Taylor does it truthfully and beautifully." --Financial Times

"This book assures and deepens Taylor's position as one of the most accomplished, important novelists of his generation. He is undoubtedly on to something expansively new in his sense of what the contemporary novel can do." --The Guardian

"Brandon Taylor's best book so far. . . . For all their disagreements and misunderstandings and incompatibilities, [his characters are] all attempting to make peace with the cosmic bêtise of existence, to figure out how to live without compromising everything they value. It's beautiful and wrenching to watch them try." --The Boston Globe

"Erudite, intimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth's promise, of the quest to find one's tribe and one's calling." --Oprah Daily

"The most dazzling example of [Taylor's] sharp pen and keen observations of human nature yet. . . . Taylor develops his characters so precisely, they feel like close friends: recognizable, sometimes infuriating, and always worth following to the book's last page."--Harper's Bazaar

About the Author

Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a national bestseller, was awarded The Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He lives in New York City.