Filthy Animals

Anyone who loved Taylor's debut novel from last year, Real Life (as I did), will feel right at home in the stories in his first collection, which also mostly feature young graduate students in the Midwest. But that's not to say you'll feel comfortable there, because Taylor makes a specialty of discomfort, of putting his characters in the most excruciatingly awkward and revealing situations. Sometimes it's their willingness to go along with what others want of them that puts them there, sometimes it's their own unruly desires (and often it's both), but you know that when his characters are being pushed messily beyond whatever conception they had of themselves (or you had of them), then Taylor has you right where he wants you.