Taylor, J: Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever

Justin Taylor's crystalline, spare, and oddly moving prose cuts to the quick. His characters are guided by misapprehensions that bring them to hilarious but often tragic impasses with reality: a high school boy's desire to win over a crush leads him to experiment with black magic, a fast-food employee preoccupied by Abu Ghraib becomes obsessed with a coworker, a Tetris player attempts to beat his own record while his girlfriend sleeps and the world outside their window blazes to its end. Fearless and astute, funny and tragic, this collection heralds the arrival of a unique literary talent.

This spare, sharp bookTaylors debut collectiondocuments a deep authority on the unavoidable confusion of being young, disaffected and human the most affecting stories inEverything Here Is the Best Thing Everare as unpredictable as a careening drunk. They leave us with the heavy residue of an unsettling strangeness, and a new voice that readersand writers, toomight be seeking out for decades to come.New York Times Book ReviewA collection of prophetic, provocative, and dazzlingly written stories by Justin Taylor, an important new voice in literary fiction and "e;a new literary beast."e; (Padgett Powell, author of The Interrogative Mood)Each story in this crystalline, spare, and moving collection cuts to the quick. Taylors characters are guided by misapprehensions that bring them to hilarious, often tragic impasses with reality. Ahigh school boy's desire to win over a crush leads him to experiment with black magic. An assistant at a hedge fund is torn between the girl he loved in college and the older man whose attention he craves. Afast food employee preoccupied by Abu Ghraib grows obsessed with a co-worker. While his girlfriend sleeps, a Tetris player tries to beat his record, nevermind that out their window blazes the end of the world.Fearless andwild, the stories ofEverything Here Isthe Best Thing Everare held together by athread of wounding humor and candid storytelling that marks Taylor as a distinct and emerging literary talent.

Justin Taylor's crystalline, spare, and oddly moving prose cuts to the quick. His characters are guided by misapprehensions that bring them to hilarious but often tragic impasses with reality: a high school boy's desire to win over a crush leads him to experiment with black magic, a fast-food employee preoccupied by Abu Ghraib becomes obsessed with a coworker, a Tetris player attempts to beat his own record while his girlfriend sleeps and the world outside their window blazes to its end. Fearless and astute, funny and tragic, this collection heralds the arrival of a unique literary talent.