At just about the midpoint of his captivating new novel, “Minor Black Figures,” Brandon Taylor embeds what I detected as the book’s mission statement, and it is truly ambitious. I’ll get to it in a bit.
The novel centers on Wyeth, an aspiring painter in New York City, in the near aftermath of the worst parts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wyeth has just crested 30 and finds himself bound up in both his past as a mixed-race artist who (mostly unintentionally) capitalized on public sentiment following the murder of George Floyd, and his future in a world where he’s lost faith in his own motives to create.
Wyeth shares a studio with three other artists, works as an assistant to an art restorer and also at a gallery. He’s doing exactly what aspiring artists are meant to do: figure out how to get by in the big city while you wait for your big break.
Wyeth loves old films, particularly foreign films. His biggest sale is a piece based on a still from an Ingmar Bergman film (“Winter Light”) in which he has substituted black figures for white ones in the movie. The moment he captures is one character coming on the dead body of another who has recently taken his own life, after succumbing to a crisis of belief and existential despair. After the death of George Floyd, the painting suddenly takes on fresh, unintended context, and puts enough money in Wyeth’s pocket to get him to New York.
But this is not a novel about a striving young artist seeking to make it big. This is a novel about everything and one thing at the same time: How to exist in the world.
Which brings us to Taylor’s thesis.
After watching an old film with one of his studio mates, Wyeth reflects on his friend’s comment about a movie’s “boring parts.”
“The boring parts of movies were his favorite. He liked mundane things rendered beautiful by the power of selection and context, as though by including them in the narrative, the very act of making coffee or preparing a meal attained a level of significance that he felt in ordinary life but that other people derided. It wasn’t that they missed the beauty in the mundane. No. It was that they saw it and still didn’t care.”
In theory, what Taylor has done shouldn’t work. Much of what is invoked is going to be unfamiliar to most readers — foreign films, descriptions of artworks we’ll never see, a meticulous use of eraser shavings to clean a damaged lithograph, and yes, the preparing of an espresso shot — and yet, as Taylor filters these things through Wyeth, I was completely invested and involved.
Taylor insists that our lives are found in all of our experiences, and he is correct.
There is story. At the center is Wyeth’s off-and-on pursuit of a relationship with Keating, a beautiful ex-Jesuit. The two are drawn to each other, but their baggage leaves them both wary. Wyeth seems incapable of accepting that someone could be genuinely tender toward him, having been awash in what he sees as an irony-based cynicism of the art world and gay world of New York.
But the brilliance here is in Taylor’s willingness, really his insistence, that we sit with Wyeth through both the mundane moments and the more thrilling times, as when he and Keating give in to their passions.
What I most enjoyed while reading this book was the sense of connection and quietude in my mind as I read. Everything was deliberate, crafted with great care, and infused with life.
John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at biblioracle.com.
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
More Top Picks Towel
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks
2. “The Measure” by Nikki Erlick
3. “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak
4. “Leave it to Jeeves” by P. G. Wodehouse
5. “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning” by Peter Beinart
— Biff G., Valparaiso, Indiana
I’m going to recommend a caustic, funny, ultimately human novel, a true classic, “Barney’s Version” by Mordecai Richler.
1. “Pineapple Street” by Jenny Jackson
2. “Never Flinch” by Stephen King
3. “James” by Percival Everett
4. “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI” by John Warner
5. “The Every” by Dave Eggers
— Paula T., Carbondale
For someone with excellent taste, an excellent novel, “Dinosaurs” by Lydia Millet.
1. “Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates
2. “The Tortilla Curtain” by T.C. Boyle
3. “We Are Too Many” by Hannah Pittard
4. “Hot Air” by Marcy Dermansky
5. “Run for the Hills” by Kevin Wilson
— Willow N., Joliet
Domestic drama seems to be the pull here. A favorite from earlier this year, “Dream State” by Eric Puchner.
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Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to [email protected].