Wallace is Black, queer, and living in the Midwest, slowly working toward his biochemistry degree. Even among his closest friends in his cohort, Wallace holds himself back, keeping the details of his Alabama childhood private. One weekend late in the semester, the many undiscussed tensions underlying their lives break through the surface. 

Holy cow, this is a debut novel?! Taylor's writing is seething, Wallace's anger and fear and hope are barely contained on the page. In so few pages, he prods at the interconnected issues of the pressures of academia, racism in historically white settings, internalized homophobia, and deep, abiding loneliness. There's so much going on in this book and Taylor pulls it all together in a seemingly effortless way.