Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever

<p><strong>This spare sharp book--Taylor's debut collection--documents a deep authority on the unavoidable confusion of being young disaffected and human ... the most affecting stories in <em>Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever</em> are as unpredictable as a careening drunk. They leave us with the heavy residue of an unsettling strangeness and a new voice that readers--and writers too--might be seeking out for decades to come. -- <em>New York Times Book Review</em></strong></p><p><strong>A collection of prophetic provocative and dazzlingly written stories by Justin Taylor an important new voice in literary fiction and a new literary beast. (Padgett Powell author of <em>The Interrogative Mood</em>)</strong></p><p>Each story in this crystalline spare and moving collection cuts to the quick. Taylor's characters are guided by misapprehensions that bring them to hilarious often tragic impasses with reality. A high school boy's desire to win over a crush leads him to experiment with black magic. An assistant at a hedge fund is torn between the girl he loved in college and the older man whose attention he craves. A fast food employee preoccupied by Abu Ghraib grows obsessed with a co-worker. While his girlfriend sleeps a Tetris player tries to beat his record nevermind that out their window blazes the end of the world.</p><p>Fearless and wild the stories of <em>Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever </em>are held together by a thread of wounding humor and candid storytelling that marks Taylor as a distinct and emerging literary talent.</p>