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With his recent debut, Real Life, Brandon Taylor has reinvigorated the concept of the campus novel. The novel’s protagonist is Wallace, a grad student biochemistry researcher at a midwestern university, one which has not admitted a black student into its lab in over three decades. Wallace, a gay black man, is the constant target of microagressions by his “gifted” white colleagues, who do everything they can to make him feel like an other in the lab and in their social circles. Wallace has tried to keep his head down and ignore the racist and homophobic comments of his peers, but he begins to feel increasingly uncomfortable after a series of incidents within his friend group and the complicated romantic predicament he finds himself in. Wallace escaped childhood sexual trauma and a difficult home life in the deep south, but it is clear that his graduate school experience holds many of its own traumas as well. This is a novel about relational transgressions, and the ways in which unwelcome bodies develop mechanisms to cope with their surroundings.
Taylor himself was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, where he researched biochemistry, just like his protagonist. In an interview with NPR, Taylor talked about setting the novel in the complicated social space of a grad school lab:”I spent a lot of time in research labs, and I came to see them as this really interesting subculture and micro-community full of the same kinds of catty politics that you see in any other environment. And so I was interested in teasing that out because when people think of science and scientists, they think of these cool-headed species of humans ruled by reason, and that’s not really the case. They’re people, so they’re complicated. They have petty jealousies. They form alliances. And I was just really interested in portraying that on the page.”
Within the lonely and isolating space of the lab, there are a great deal of transgressions committed against Wallace. His is subjected to microagressions from his colleagues, who often make offhand remarks to him—he should be thankful for his spot in the program, he needs to overcome his background, he must make up for the “deficiencies” in his study caused by being a black student, etc. And many of these comments are made to him by people he would consider to be his friends, who are protected by their insulated all-white social group and free to lash out at Wallace whenever they feel like it, without the threat of any others friends intervening on his behalf. And thus Wallace develops protective tendencies against these attackers, isolating himself in his apartment, or repeating his mantra, “its fine, I’m fine”, when he is physically or verbally attacked.
This is not a novel about a man who transcended childhood sexual violence and the regressive politics of the south to become educated in the enlightened north, but rather a novel about someone who has continued throughout his life to make himself smaller with the hopes of becoming less threatening to those surrounding him. He is the only black researcher in his lab, located in a midwestern community that makes him feel unfamiliar and unwelcome. There is the sense that his colleagues and friends have no idea how to be around a black person, and thus go about making ignorant comments to Wallace over and over again. Wallace is a highly educated black man who is made to feel like he is not deserving of his accomplishments by his white peers, a feeling that anyone familiar with the toxic culture of academia will recognize immediately.
Taylor has crafted brilliantly messy characters in this campus novel that offers a fresh take on identity politics, memory, and belonging in the fields of arts and sciences. From the social microcosm of a biochem lab, Taylor has extracted difficult truths about toxic social structures aimed at excluding and provoking those it does not deem worthy. Wallace’s loneliness is so emotionally striking throughout the novel, and his efforts to connect and disconnect with his surroundings are written with staggering nuance and emotional intelligence. Taylor’s debut is a deeply resonant and well-crafted portrayal of the intersections between science, art, romance, trauma, and vulnerability. I highly recommend.
Further Reading: If you enjoy novels about morally aloof, often unlikeable, and academically-obsessed college kids, check out Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. (Read my review here) For another read that centers a queer black boy leaving the south and attending college in the midwest, check out Saeed Jones’ How We Fight For Our Lives. (Read my review here)