Even his accuser admits Wallace’s work ethic as she hurls epithets at him: “You dump all of your precious little time into this lab” Though he passes his exams, his white advisor still speaks as if her letting him stay enrolled is an act of “bestowing blessings” or “bestowing beneficence” or “bestowing irrefutable grace…as though she were saving him.” In one explosive scene, a white classmate accuses him of being a misogynist who relies on his race and sexuality instead of hard work, though Wallace is one of the few students who stays late in the lab, even working through summer break. He’s often called aside for talking down or being too aggressive to his classmates-the presumption being a black student couldn’t possibly know better than his white classmates, even though he sees through their mistakes in the lab. In the homogenous world of the Midwestern town, Wallace is subject to microaggressions and at times outright racism and homophobia.

An introvert living among students who love dinner parties, Sunday brunches, and boating excursions on the lake, Wallace “never like they wanted him there.” At the same time, he’s socially awkward and deeply suspicious of social interactions and “the contours and confines of social expectations.”Īlienated but forced to be a part of the community, Taylor’s protagonist quietly navigates treacherous territory. Among his lean and vegan classmates, he’s athletic yet fat and once made the mistake of bringing Swedish meatballs to one of their parties. He’s the only black student in his program and one of the few black residents in town. At the onset, we know Wallace is different from his cohort. Covering one weekend in late summer, Real Life-the debut novel of Brandon Taylor-starts with Wallace, an introverted, gay, black biochemistry graduate student, meeting his friends at the lake in an unnamed Midwestern college town.

Real life brandon taylor review