"In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty"--

In Taylor's linked stories he focuses on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. The stories, set among young people in the American Midwest, provide a portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it. -- adapted from jacket

"In the pages of Brandon Taylor's Filthy Animals, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship. Elsewhere, a young woman battles with cancers both literal and figurative; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating., Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it."--From back cover.