My main problem with this pretentious, overwritten and superficial novel was that I couldn't relate to, care about or be interested in any of the characters. They all seemed such wasters – plus there were far too many of them – and it was hard to differentiate between them; they were all so vacuous. Set in Iowa City over one year, the novel portrays a group of disparate young people testing their identity and feeling hard done by. Brandon Taylor himself says that he sees the book as a relay race, with each character coming on to the scene then handing the baton on to the next. Nice idea, and certainly the same characters reappear in various chapters, but it’s still essentially a series of vignettes or loosely linked short stories rather than a cohesive narrative. And if they are all bored with their fatuous lives, then I was equally bored reading about them. And then there’s the sex. Lots of explicit gay sex. I don’t object to this out of prudishness, but it’s so tedious and repetitive. Unless you’re into gay porn (nothing wrong with that) who does the author think he’s writing these scenes for? Who does he think will be interested? How does it all move the narrative forward? Thus I was astonished to see all the rave 5* reviews. I am obviously in a minority here. But heigh-ho – that’s the joy of literature (although can I call this one literature?) Something for everyone. And this one definitely not for me.

Had to give up as the book became rather complex and difficult to follow…….a range of characters moving in and out of a complicated storyline. Sorry! Was looking forward to enjoying it.

As ever, what I love about Brandon Taylor's writing is the balancing act between the concrete and the abstract. There are moments in this novel like jewels, turns of phrase both gorgeous and gutting.

This is a novel that turns from one character to another without a plot so much as a narrative thread, about happiness, about desire, about wanting or fearing or the inability being known. There's a big cast, some who weave in and out, but Iowa City and its many landscapes looms throughout.

Sometimes when you say a novel is about art it can be a cover for a novel that is intellectual more than it is enjoyable. I don't mean that when I say its an art novel; it's refreshing to read one where multiple artistic disciplines in their idiosyncrasies are at work.

I've read reviews that say Seamus is the central figure; to me the figure around whom this novel circles is Noah - he has a connection to everyone in the cast, his chapter sits towards the middle, his experiences offer neat mirrors, inversions, extensions of the experiences of others. I appreciated the ways in which Taylor doesn't judge (as that isn't what novels excel at, despite our current moment) but tries to show the facets and difficulties of negotiating the self and negotiating it with others.

Brandon Taylor plays excellently with some of the hot-button issues of the moment, exploring and poking at areas as broad as cancel culture, authenticity of voice and the line between sex and violence, and forcing his characters to confront everything about who they are.

Largely focused around university students, we see how the microcosms of their lives routinely explode and implode, defying easy definitions or solutions, and I think this is where Taylor is most interesting, pushing every arguments to extremes until every character must confront who they are.

Although the end of this book felt a little sudden for me, I do wonder if this book will be part of a wider series, and therefore if we will see these characters again.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this novel and yet it could have been more satisfying. It was my first time reading Brandon Taylor, and I enjoyed the atmosphere created by the novel - I think academia is hard to write about because it is difficult to convey how it can be exciting without appearing pretentious, and I think Taylor has managed to do that well in a way, where his characters' excitement seems genuine but told with distance and irony. I found it irritating though to have such a large cast of characters - inevitably, we never see the ones we really care about, and I ended up resenting pages spent on characters I wanted to see less of. Why start a whole new chapter on Bea, the neighbour of another minor character, whom we have never seen before, when it could be about Seamus, who welcomed the readers into the novel but disappears halfway through? Or about Ivan, stuck with his wealthy boyfriend, bored to death but being practical and studying finance?
And why give us so many vignettes, and so little plot?

3.5 stars, rounded up.

*3.5 stars*
This one really left me torn! Having not read Real Life but rather all the hype about it, I was going into The Late Americans completely blind but with high expectations. What I loved about the novel was Taylor’s writing style and his talent is evident. However, I just couldn’t get into some of the stories and struggled to warm to the majority of the characters. I’m sure many will love this but it just wasn’t 100% for me on this occasion.

The main thing to say is that Taylor is without doubt a brilliant writer . He’s created this distinct lyrical style prose which draws the reader in and it’s that reason that I will pick up anything he writes .

However if you’re new to his work then I wouldn’t say this is his best . It’s good but I just felt something was missing for me . I think it would have been better if it was published as a story collection as each chapter could be read as a stand alone . We follow a group of students and townspeople in a University town where everyone is facing an uncertain future , each chapter is narrated by a different character . Like his previous books there is little plot and it’s more character focused but I just didn’t connect to the characters in the same way as I have before , it’s not that I disliked them , I just found them a bit dull . Some chapters were much better than others as is what happens in a story collection.

The writing is so good though as is the vivid backdrop and sense of atmosphere when reading . I enjoyed it, didn’t love it but will 100% read whatever he writes next .

The first ARC I'm DNF'ing - I just got no enjoyment out of this. Totally pretentious and overwritten, I actually couldn't tell the difference between some characters? Stopped at 25%, just not a book for me I guess!

Hooked me from the very beginning, the Late Americans follows a group of friends all loosely connected to each other against the back drop of their American college campus. I loved the scenes with Seamus and his poetry and also thought the discussions around online porn and relationships were super intriguing and something I’m glad was included in the book. Taylor’s writing was, as ever, lyrical and addictive. This is getting the number two spot amongst the ones of his I’ve read as I think Real Life reigns supreme however I loved the change in tone to something which felt more immediate and commenting on a wider range of ideas. Cannot wait for more of Taylor’s work.

Another fantastic novel from Brandon Taylor - lyrical, beautiful, intimate, and wise. One of my favourite authors, an easy auto-buy! If you enjoy interweaving stories of friendship, lust, violence, and distaste, you'll adore this novel.

I always appreciate Brandon Taylor's stylish writing style but unfortunately I did not find this novel particularly interesting. It started strong, each chapter following a different character in an Iowa university town. But gradually the sense dawned that the same dynamics were playing out again and again: a central male character, intelligent but misunderstood by those around him (classmates, on-off boyfriend, friends) chafing against his life. It didn't gather a sense of momentum for me and I lost interest and abandoned it about a third of the way through. There was some beautiful description in here (like the imagery of Timo laying out his folded laundry like the parts of a butchered animal) but this one just wasn't for me.

I haven’t read anything else by this author but this book wasn’t for me- I understood the words but I didn’t ‘get’ it. It felt like a struggle to get through. Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me an early arc of this book.

I so admired the intensity and commitment of Brandon Taylor’s portrait of everyday life in a university town in Iowa, moving between students and townspeople he probes the tensions between these disparate communities and explores the interior lives of a selection of its residents. This wonderfully disciplined piece, with writing that has an arresting clarity and poignancy, features a revolving cast of characters whose lives overlap or intertwine. Characters who’re all striving to carve out a space for themselves in a profoundly challenging society, together they form a microcosm of contemporary American society with its myriad challenges and obstacles. A place where divides of age, class, race, and, crucially, money dictate what kinds of dreams someone may or may not dare to entertain.

Although Taylor builds towards a cautiously optimistic conclusion, there’s an overwhelming sense of melancholy here, of struggle, of lack of connection, of confusion. The students, mainly dancers and creative writers, are haunted by lingering cultural notions of art as somehow freeing or above commerce while taunted by the realisation that this is an era in which art has no real currency, except as so far as it can be transformed into commodity. The local community is also struggling and even academics are frequent flyers at the town’s foodbanks. Graduate student Seamus wants to write poetry but his vision is out of step with his socially and politically conscious classmates and the prevailing trend for creative writing as ersatz therapy, yet he clings to his unfashionable ideas about form and about language, while trying to find ways to fund his studies and desperately trying to process an incident of horrifying abuse. Bea lives next door to dancer Noah, watching him and his friends from her window, isolated and just about getting by, she’s a prime example of America’s lost middle classes, her education leading to a precarious existence tutoring the children of the town’s richer families.

Taylor’s narrative is highly referential and intertextual: from the nod to Henry James in the title to the echoes of Russian writer Garshin and of Raymond Carver’s “dirty realism” frequently reflected in Taylor’s style – even sending me back to reread Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” As in Carver’s fiction, love is an elusive, near-indefinable experience for Taylor’s characters, sex is much easier to come by, couples come together yet find any sense of real or lasting connection almost impossible, yet still they’re driven on in their quest for some kind of meaningful union sometimes glimpsed in rare, fleeting moments of tenderness. Taylor has talked about wanting to write fiction that captures “the rhythms of living in the world” and, at least for me, this accomplished, questioning piece definitely achieves that goal.

Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.

I really wanted to like this but I just didn't find it interesting and couldn't connect with any of the characters. Taylor's writing is fab though, and I still plan to read his previous books, I just think this particular one wasn't for me.

Brandon Taylor's 'Real Life' was one of my books of the year in 2020. It was compelling, humane, and written with prose that made me want to press the book into anyone's hand and say 'you must read this'. And so I was super-excited to read this, but with trepidation - can someone who has written such a good book do it again?

For me, this lacked the personal connection with the characters, none of whom really interested me enough to care about them. OK, they are young, on the cusp of adulthood and life is complicated, but maybe it was the flitting from one character to another in a series of vignettes that just didn't hold my attention.

However, it is fair to say that Taylor can write prose with the best of them. Boy oh boy, sometimes you will read a sentence that is so perfect it takes your breath away:

'Above them the sky opened, and the water came, gray and fast, filling the whole world until the rain touched everything and everything touched the rain.'

And so I forgive him that, this time at least, I just couldn't quite care enough about the characters. But I will seek out his next book for sure, because this is a special talent. 4 stars.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

Taylor's writing here is sharper than ever: I loved the milieu, the characters, the wonderfully microscopic exploration of their inner lives. The prose is considered, graceful and taut. Taylor's treatment of plot and character suggests a significant and insightful shift in his (and our own) vision of contemporary fiction. Many thanks to Random House UK for the ARC!

Absolutely brilliant - so compelling and well-crafted; although would warn that it can be a bit visceral/violent in places. still 5 star literary fiction.

A fascinating and intriguing book composed by short stories about different post grad students. The storytelling and the style of writing are superb.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

In The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor tells the story of how a group of final year university students in Iowa live, study and manage their relationships. The students' interactions with their peers, lecturers and landlords are recounted as they complete their undergraduate programs.

Coming from diverse backgrounds and bringing various personal experiences, the students' differing viewpoints more often than not cause tension. Seamus is a poetry student who works to support himself; when he is critical of the submissions of his peers on more than one occasion, it causes confrontation as his criticism is not well-received.

In the dance class, students are working towards being offered a postgrad place when they complete their final year. But the real drama in this story are the relationships and sexual encounters often illicit which further complicates their already complex lives.

Taylor's style of writing is a delight to read; he cleverly reveals more about his characters as the narrative unfolds which may momentarily cause the reader to shift their own point of view. A good number of issues arise and questions are posed. The book is thoroughly entertaining.

I am somewhat struggling to give my thoughts on this one. Overall I found this quite a frustrating read. This reads like connected short stories rather than a novel and much like several short story collections I have read, some work better than others. I struggled keeping up with the number of characters introduced, I found myself finally becoming invested in a narrative and then it would switch and I wanted to know so much more about one of two of the characters and less of others. And yet when reading there would be flashes of brilliance or a page would take my breath away with its quiet devastating accuracy. This frustrated me, the unevenness.
Undoubtedly Taylor is a skilled writer but overall I don't think this one was for me and I much preferred Real Life. A strong female character would have added more to this book for me as a reader to break up the cast of quite similar characters.

Flashes of greatness but overall not for me.