Filthy Animals
Stories
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3.7 • 33 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY USA TODAY, NPR, VULTURE, MARIE CLAIRE, THE TIMES OF LONDON, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A group portrait of young adults enmeshed in desire and violence, a hotly charged, deeply satisfying new work of fiction from the author of Booker Prize finalist Real Life
In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty.
One of the breakout literary stars of 2020, Brandon Taylor has been hailed by Roxane Gay as “a writer who wields his craft in absolutely unforgettable ways.” With Filthy Animals he renews and expands on the promise made in Real Life, training his precise and unsentimental gaze on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating, Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Taylor follows his Booker shortlisted Real Life with a sharp, surprising collection. Many of the stories cover a 24-hour period in Madison, Wis., beginning with the excellent "Pot Luck." Lionel, an exam proctor and mathematician who is recently out of psychiatric care following a suicide attempt, goes to a dinner party and meets Charles, a dancer. A mutual attraction emerges, despite some awkwardness and the presence of Charles's partner, Sophie. "Flesh" shifts perspective to Charles in his dance class the next morning, and delineates his complex dynamic with Sophie. "Proctoring," a standout featuring Lionel at work, further complicates the triangle. As the sequence continues, supporting characters are linked by various circumstances. (The client of a young woman who works as a home cook and a babysitter in "Little Beast" turns out to be the doctor of one of Charles's dance classmates.) In the marvelous "Meat," Lionel concludes, "All of life was shifting equations." Throughout, Taylor spins intimate narratives of fraught relationship dynamics and demonstrates a keen sensitivity to his characters' fragile mental health. Taylor's language sparks with the tension of beauty and cruelty, conveying a sense of desire and the pleasures of food and sex complicated by capricious behavior. The author has an impressive range, and his depictions of complex characters trapped in untenable situations are hard to forget.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant Story Collection
After Brandon Taylor’s brilliant debut, Real Life, last year, FILTHY ANIMALS is a tremendous follow-up. This collection of short stories are woven together with themes of identity and pain. A thread through many of the stories are the characters of Lionel, Charles, and Sophie, who meet at a potluck at the beginning of the book.
Taylor has the ability to write about lives, almost in real time, over hours or days, and taking the mundane aspects of life and transforming them into something meaningful. His prose is excellent. For me, reading his books is a fully immersive experience, it’s almost as if I’m living it.
The book explores themes of identity, relationships, pain. Several of the characters are ballet dancers with pain and skill centered in their body. This makes the book much more visceral. Some of the characters deal with trauma like abuse, or self-harm, or a cancer diagnosis. Many of the stories deal with complicated relationships that are non-traditional or at least not widely portrayed in fiction.
I loved that this book captures moments in the lives of these characters like a snapshot, brief, ephemeral. At the same time, full characters and whole worlds are developed with an ease that astounds me. I can’t recommend this book enough.