The Brooklyn Rail

Minor Black Figures, Brandon Taylor’s third novel, follows Real Life and The Late Americans in offering reflections on art and culture, race and identity, and the way in which we connect to one another. In Taylor’s standard fashion, this is all done through extended observations of the world around his narrator—in the case of Taylor’s prior novels, that world has largely centered on university campuses and the people who inhabit them. For Minor Black Figures, however, Taylor leaves the university behind. That said, the reach of the ivory tower is not so easily shaken—which is, in large part, the point.

While the popularity of romance and fantasy has surged among readers, literary fiction—Taylor’s genre of choice—remains sought after by a smaller number of readers. It makes sense. In Taylor’s case, an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate whose previous novel was set within a fictionalized version of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, his obvious audience may be expected: readers who know what the Iowa Writers’ Workshop is. Or, in a less literary sense, people who have seen Girls on HBO. And Minor Black Figures finds its setting in the art world of New York City, a just as obvious alumni destination.

We explore this world through the eyes of Wyeth, a Black painter navigating post-pandemic politics as well as his relationship with a white former seminarian. The story inside is a rich one—Taylor’s literary flair is on clear display in the novel—but what’s most interesting about the book, perhaps, is its lucid indictment of its own audience. Taylor seems to be aware of the public conversation surrounding his work and identity politics, and has been vocal in the past about his own desire to resist the commodification of his identities for the sake of his work. It’s a desire that Wyeth holds as well. What he enjoys painting are insertions of Black people in movies where they don’t otherwise exist—but he insists that this isn’t political. He simply chooses movies that he enjoys.

It’s hardly an abstract concept—Taylor has written fiction for years about Black folks surrounded by white people. It’s always a disruption or a discomfort. But the thing about Taylor’s story this time around is that grappling with Black art and white eyes is the point.

Taylor sets his story in the careening years following the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 racial justice uprisings. Taylor reveals the markers of post-pandemic life with the same nonchalance as a Twitter or Instagram algorithm—which is to say, they come casually though not without intention. There’s “brown water cascading from the roof of a subway station in Brooklyn,” fallout from the 2022 Dobbs vs. Jackson decision, and Instagram infographics promoting mutual aid. It’s a useful device, as the expectations for Black artists to create art about Black struggle could not have been higher. Wyeth steps into it accidentally, having sold his first successful painting after “[back-dooring] his way into a dead black boy painting.”

It’s uncomfortable. Taylor looks his audience dead in the eye—the “ivory tower” that extends beyond the campus: “the whole processional of the cultural and media elite, the doomed and dying demimonde of artists, gallerists, and tastemakers.” And he’s not pleased. But while Wyeth begins from a place of disdain, and ultimately, transitions to one of understanding—even if that understanding comes with few answers. 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.

An artist has got to create art; Black folks have got to live; white people are going to voyeur—what is to be done?

“I think their stuff is really ugly. And crude. And they don't paint black people. They paint black figures. Objects.”

Brandon Taylor will continue writing, and no doubt, critics will continue writing about him. But Minor Black Figures is 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.