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from npr. Brandon Taylor was the kind of kid who kept a rock journal.

And I grew up on a farm and so I would keep very detailed notes about my grandpa's like chickens

that he was breeding. I mean, if this kid wasn't destined for career in science, I don't know who

is. Some people go to college and they're like, what is my major? I never wavered. The biggest change

in my life was deciding that I would instead of being a neurosurgeon, studied neurochemistry.

Like that was like the big, big change in my life. I know I walked on the wild side there. And so,

like for me, my entire life, I thought I was going to be a scientist.

But today, Brandon is not a scientist. He's a writer. His debut novel, Real Life, came out this year.

And it was a big hit. Got written up in the New York Times, O magazine. So it's safe to say,

things are going well for him. But Brandon says walking away from science was like walking away

from religion. Science is this incredible, like amazing way of knowing the world and knowing

the universe and knowing meaning. And in some ways, it's akin to faith in that way. And it's also

incredibly painful and fraught and difficult. And so it is also akin to faith in that way.

Leaving science was for me. Like it was akin to burning down my life and trying to find a new

world view because that is the thing that I built my entire life around. I didn't experience a

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