Hamburger/Mobile Menu
Twigge Logo
Books
Gift Cards
Reading List
Cart Image
< Back to the Stacks
Filthy Animals

Filthy Animals

By: Brandon Taylor

Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Time, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, O: The Oprah Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, BuzzFeed, Vulture, Thrillist, The Week, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, The Millions, and Paperback Paris.

A group portrait of young adults enmeshed in...Read More

Experience: Hit Me Right in the Feels

Format: Hardcover

Genre(s): Literary Fiction

Page(s): 288

Published: June 2021

Rental Price: $9.99 for six weeks (List Price $26.00 | Save 62%)

Book Value Prop1
Book Value Prop2
Book Value Prop3
  • DESCRIPTION
  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  • EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Time, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, O: The Oprah Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, BuzzFeed, Vulture, Thrillist, The Week, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, The Millions, and Paperback Paris.

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.

Brandon Taylor is the author of the acclaimed novel Real Life, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in fiction.

"Sumptuous, melancholic portraits of characters overwhelmed. . . . Taylor has a talent for taking the dull hum of quotidian life and converting it into lyrics. . . . These intimacies, often cozy, pair splendidly with the uglier, more brutal elements to establish the book's focus: the feral that lurks under the veneer. . . . A perfect companion piece for our nervous era." - John Paul Brammer, New York Times Book Review  

"Taylor is an important literary talent, not least for his ability to render the familiar into the shockingly unfamiliar. Full of beauty and harshness, the complex and startling stories of Filthy Animals will stick with readers long after the pages are read." - USA Today  

"Lumious. . . . tap[s] into the peculiar, primal struggle of becoming who you are, and all the stories you have to tell yourself to get there." - Entertainment Weekly  

"Explore[s] love, longing, and erotic desire between an interconnected group of creatives in the Midwest with tenderness and a gentle touch of dry humor . . . Fully delivering on the promise of Real Life, Filthy Animals firmly establishes Taylor as a brilliantly inventive storyteller, and one whose beautifully drawn characters have that rare ability to really make you care." - Vogue  

"Stunning. . . . Each story has a cinematic quality that is wholly earned. . . . Emotionally rich but also physically grounded. . . . Filthy Animals allows its characters to crawl out into the open and learn to love." - Los Angeles Times  

"[These] stories feel almost like slices of life, but the everyday is heightened by the intensity of the characters' longing, desire, anger and, above all else, passion. . . . Taylor's characters are beautiful messes, with their flaws, uncertainty, and mistakes making them all the more intriguing and real." - Associated Press  

"A probing short story collection that grapples with societal expectations and transgressions . . . a luminous exploration of identity, mental health, and sexuality." - BuzzFeed

"Impressive . . . The cloistered world of student life offers Taylor the perfect canvas for the emotionally charged interplay between an insular cast. Most significantly though, these stories provide further evidence that intimacy is Taylor's great subject." - Financial Times 

"Filthy Animals touches on the soft underbelly of human existence, showing the animalistic qualities we all share. How we all struggle to make meaningful connections, have a sense of dignity and deal with pain." - Seattle Times  

"Gorgeous." - Barrie Hardymon, NPR

"Resonant and poignant. . . . Taylor writes about relationships like a modern E. M. Forster, poking and prodding at the places where the connection is thinnest, and observing what happens when people madly attempt to shore it up." - Vulture

"Taylor fixes his gaze on [his characters'] moments of peril, probing the tension between vulnerability and deception, sexual desire and violence, with an elegant precision teetering on the gothic." - GQ

"With a stark and unwavering eye and a deep respect for his subjects, Taylor builds instantly recognizable tales of longing and desire." - Elle

"Incisive and keenly observed, these stories confirm that Taylor is one of our finest chroniclers of intimacy and loneliness." - Esquire

How it Works

account

  • My Book Rentals
  • Order History
  • Sign In

company

  • About Us
  • Become an Affiliate

help

  • FAQs
  • Email Us

Join the Conversation

Visit our Instagram
Sign up for our emails and join the best community of readers on the internet (in our humble opinion).
Copyright © 2023 Twigge | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy
Close X
Stacks
Gifts
My TBR List
Close X
Cart


Explore The Stacks
Checkout