Brandon Taylor’s astonishing debut novel tells the tale of Wallace, a black laboratory student, and his interactions with his white colleagues. The novel earned a spot on the 2020 Booker Prize shortlist, and rightly so, the book is uncomfortable, unsettling and most of all, incredibly human. In this review, we break down why the novel is so important and why Brandon Taylor is an author to watch in the coming years.
Brandon Taylor’s debut novel – Real Life – is set across a long weekend in the midwest of America and tells the story of Wallace, a black gay postgraduate student raised in the deep south and the prejudice and pain that he endures at the hands of his white colleagues. The novel earned a spot on the 2020 Booker Prize shortlist and is an important novel dealing with prejudice in all its forms. The main thread of the story revolves around Wallace’s newly sexual relationship with one of the men in his immediate social circle, Miller, a white and openly straight fellow student that is simultaneously complicated, violent and uneasy. These increasingly painful and uncomfortable interactions are laid against a background of prejudice and racism at work – Dana, a ‘gifted’ and frustratingly admired white colleague labels Wallace a ‘misogynist,’ a term that his white female boss is all too ready to support. This thread of prejudice and uncomfortable interactions overlays Wallace’s interactions with all those he comes into contact with and the background of the abuse he suffered as a child is an important hinge around which he navigates his friendships, from his bizarre interactions with one of his female friends – she consoles him on the death of his father by kissing him – and his jealousy-tinged interventionist tendencies in one of his friend’s relationships.
Despite the uncomfortable nature of the novel, Taylor’s prose is compelling and pacy – though there is no traditional plot that drives through to conclusion, still the novel moves at a pace that makes it utterly compelling, not least in the frustrating injustice that will hold up a mirror to white readers. This is a must read for the innate understanding of the human experience with prejudice and the complicated reactions to that prejudice.
