Justin Taylor’s debut story collection has been getting positive reviews—with caveats, but positive. Todd Pruzan, in the New York Times Book Review, offers the least qualified praise, saying, “This spare, sharp book documents a deep authority on the unavoidable confusion of being young, disaffected and human” and that Taylor’s voice is one “that readers—and writers, too—might be seeking out for decades to come.” In Bookforum, Eryn Loeb writes that, “Taylor’s heroes—mostly males ranging from twitchy kids to restless thirty-somethings—are reliably uncomfortable in their own skins, embracing risk in an attempt to salvage some sense of themselves,” and that “[a] subtle misanthropy pervades” the collection. The Oxford American compares the book’s dark humor to the very good company of Mary Gaitskill’s Bad Behavior and Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son. The magazine warns: “Beware: The nontraditional sexual relationship is a theme in Taylor’s work and deliciously unusual conflicts appear.” Taylor’s fondness for Donald Barthelme has been mentioned in reviews, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that the magazine also says, “Occasionally, Taylor’s ambitious formal experiments detract from his hypnotic plots and sloppily charming characters.” In Time Out New York, Second Pass contributor Jessica Ferri says that “Taylor captures the suffocating boredom of small-town life perfectly, pinpointing how a lack of culture combined with a disappointing family situation can become a recipe for bad behavior,” and that he “displays a gift for illuminating the connections between the mundane and the grotesque.”

Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever by Justin Taylor
Harper Perennial, 208 pp., $13.99