Just Pervs

Finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards, Bisexual Fiction Category.

Two sex addicts meet and fall in love. A woman catches her husband cheating on her with their dog and escapes to her sister’s horse farm. Four friends-fellow pervs-grow up and drift apart, pining for each other in silence until one of them is murdered.

In Jess Taylor’s sophomore story collection, contemporary views of female sexuality are subverted, and women are given agency over their desires and bodies. Through these characters, sex is revealed to be many things at once: gross, shameful, exhilarating, hidden or open-and always complicated. Reminiscent of the works of Maggie Nelson, Mary Gaitskill and Chris Kraus, the stories in Just Pervs explore the strange oppression and illumination created by desire, the bewilderment of adolescence, and the barriers to intimacy both discovered within and imposed upon ourselves.

Praise for Jess Taylor:

It’s an exciting thing to behold; one gets the sense of discovering in her authentic, compelling voice a master-in-waiting, like a young Alice Munro. -National Post

Taylor exhibits remarkable insights into matters of the fickle heart. -Toronto Star

Taylor is adept at capturing the anxiety-ridden tenor of the current zeitgeist. -The Globe and Mail