That Taylor achieves a similar verisimilitude [to Jeanne Dielman] with his new novel is no small feat ... Taylor ranks among our most gifted writers of gay sex ... Taylor’s command of the milieu is especially evident in the finesse of his dialogue ... Taylor’s most accomplished novel — a sustained, idiosyncratic portrait of an artist.
Taylor’s story this time around is that grappling with Black art and white eyes is the point ... It’s uncomfortable. Taylor looks his audience dead in the eye ... Instead of disputing with critics or ignoring critique outright, Taylor uses his third novel to invite the reader into the criticism itself. Minor Black Figures isn’t a counter, but rather, it’s a story of an artist’s attempt to find his way in the world ... A departure. There’s a vulnerability to the evolution of Wyeth and a willingness to let difficult questions go unanswered—but not to be discarded. He’ll keep asking them. The world will turn.
Captivating ... 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.
Unsatisfying ... There is no delineation between Wyeth and Taylor’s opinions, which makes it hard to parse whether Taylor is consciously constructing Wyeth’s inability to truly witness and evaluate the Black work he critiques or if he too has only a cursory knowledge of the subject ... A self-indulgent conclusion that does not reveal anything but Wyeth’s psychological bind ... It’s a comically flat ending ...
I am not surprised to see this brand of intellectualism around Blackness from Taylor, whose characters tend to occupy passive roles ... There is no talk of dismantling it, or rage. It’s Afropessimism without the threat of revolution ... We know these white darlings by many names…expert witnesses of whiteness and unreliable narrators of Black culture but treated as authorities all the same ... Minor Black Figures reminds us of the earnestness of this sycophancy, that it is its own terminal condition.
Beautifully done ... For those drawn to fiction about art, about the messiness of human relationships, and about the way our political culture can influence both, Brandon Taylor’s Minor Black Figures will be one of the fall’s most exciting books.
...every Brandon Taylor character is a complex mess in the best possible way. Wyeth continues Taylor’s legacy of these characters, but with an even more refined—and often, even more crushing—lens. And through this lens, Taylor forges perhaps the most compelling story of life under the weight of opinion and perception that I’ve read ... Taylor tells a story about appreciating complexity—of curiosity and examination—rather than echoing an opinion and covering one’s eyes. While the world buzzes with opinions louder and simpler by the day, Minor Black Figures—like much of Taylor’s best work—encourages introspection, understanding, and an appreciation of intricacy. The world is here, Taylor shows us—sophisticated, difficult, and gorgeous—as long as you’re willing to look at it for more than a few seconds.
Full of Wyeth’s questions, this novel of ideas about art, selfhood, and faith is also a romance, a friendship story, and an enjoyable slice of one hazy Manhattan summer.
A thoughtful novel sprinkled with enjoyable specifics of New York neighborhoods and the processes of art restoration and painting. At times, Wyeth’s thoughts and conversations with Keating and other friends mushroom into miniessays on gentrification, climate change and reproductive justice that draw focus from the plot. Despite that, Minor Black Figures remains an appealing romance as it tackles the challenges of creating art and finding love in highly politicized 21st-century America.
