Minor Black Figures
Published on 19. March 2026
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-1-78733-642-1 (ISBN)
Description
A painter. A priest. One hot New York summer.
'A genuinely swoony summer romance' New York Times
'Brilliant' Raven Leilani
'Stunning' Observer
Wyeth is a newcomer to New York, a young Black painter who is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art scene. He shares a studio with his friends and earns money working for a gallery and an art restorer but he's struggling with his portrait painting, unable to truly capture the life of his subjects.
Then he meets Keating, a white former priest struggling with his faith. The two men seemingly have nothing in common, and yet Keating shows Wyeth how to see the world anew. But as the men grow closer, the differences between them become more stark, until Wyeth and Keating must decide what they are willing to risk - for art and for love.
'One of the most perfect books I've ever read' NPR
'A piercing, precise, and affecting tale of young love and high art' Kirkus
'One of the most accomplished, important novelists of his generation' Guardian
'Brandon Taylor is without a doubt our laureate of hyper-intelligent yearning - nobody does it better' Lit Hub
'A genuinely swoony summer romance' New York Times
'Brilliant' Raven Leilani
'Stunning' Observer
Wyeth is a newcomer to New York, a young Black painter who is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art scene. He shares a studio with his friends and earns money working for a gallery and an art restorer but he's struggling with his portrait painting, unable to truly capture the life of his subjects.
Then he meets Keating, a white former priest struggling with his faith. The two men seemingly have nothing in common, and yet Keating shows Wyeth how to see the world anew. But as the men grow closer, the differences between them become more stark, until Wyeth and Keating must decide what they are willing to risk - for art and for love.
'One of the most perfect books I've ever read' NPR
'A piercing, precise, and affecting tale of young love and high art' Kirkus
'One of the most accomplished, important novelists of his generation' Guardian
'Brandon Taylor is without a doubt our laureate of hyper-intelligent yearning - nobody does it better' Lit Hub
Reviews / Votes
Minor Black Figures is brilliant - an exploration of the fraught channel between faith and artmaking -- Raven Leilani Brandon Taylor is without a doubt our laureate of hyper-intelligent yearning - nobody does it better * Lit Hub * Contemplative and sensuous... Taylor is onto something rich and appealing-a story unafraid to foreground love and lust, and that treats emotional ambiguity as a starting point, not as the fuzzy ending common in literary fiction. A piercing, precise, and affecting tale of young love and high art * Kirkus * Dazzling. . . a poetic meditation on Black art, friendship, young love and intimacy * USA Today * A sharp, resonant novel about a young Black gay painter adrift in New York who spends one life-changing summer grappling with questions of faith, desire, and creative purpose * Bustle * Brandon Taylor is always a must-read, and his newest, Minor Black Figures, is another masterpiece... It's a moving, thoughtful take on friendship, love, and art * Town & Country * Mesmerizingly detailed. . .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 * Booklist * Sexy as hell... Paced to the languid, sticky rhythms of a New York summer... Minor Black Figures is Taylor's most accomplished novel - a sustained, idiosyncratic portrait of an artist... imbued with a fresh, tentative sweetness, and anchored by a genuinely swoony summer romance * New York Times * [A] stunning...novel... Taylor writes magnificently about art ?in a ?Kuenstlerroman that doubles as an inquiry into desire, faith and what it costs to create beauty in a world that would rather not see you * Observer, *Books to Look Out For 2026* * Discussions of faith, art and race delicately suffuse the book with a self-consciousness that captures millennial angst * Mail on Sunday *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
614 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78733-642-1 (9781787336421)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Brandon Taylor
Minor Black Figures
The captivating modern love story from the Booker-Prize shortlisted author
E-Book
03/2026
Vintage Digital
€12.99
Available for download
Person
Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a US bestseller, was awarded the Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. His criticism has been published in the New York Times, Bookforum and the London Review of Books and in his newsletter, Sweater Weather.