The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor

Sunday, June 18, 2023

 The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor is a mess of a book.  I've read his previous books, one a novel and the other a collection of short stories, and they were so good that I decided to give this one a chance as soon as I read it was being released.  I had to wait about 6 weeks with it on hold at my local library for reading on my Kindle.  It was not worth either the wait nor the amount of time to read it, but I did stay through the end of it.  This one is a hybrid--called a novel but really a collection of short stories in which some characters reappear (only occasionally) in other stories.  What are the problems:  1)  The first story, as well as a later one, both dwell on the critiques women are making of poems that have been submitted in a poetry class.  Their critiques are pretentious and the women seem to be poseurs trying to impress while also trying to tear down the writers.  Boring to read.  2)  In that first story and throughout the book the writer stays with situations way too long; so boring passages become a common element of the whole book.  3)  Throughout the book the author seems to be trying to impress us with his choice of vocabulary, similes, metaphors, etc.  It's distracting and boring when a reader notices something like this, because the reader's mind is pulled away from the story instead of staying in it.  4) There are too many characters with very deep backstories to keep in mind throughout the whole book as they come and go in the stories; that's sign that the author probably wrote all of these as short stories and was convinced to put them together and call it a novel.  5)  There are interesting characters who aren't covered enough and boring characters who are covered too much.  6)  To state it again within this list of points, whoever was the editor didn't do his/her job, so the book is a total mess!  I'm being generous when I give it 3 stars out of 5.