“No other novel this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end. Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Everything happening in this book is so intimate. Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto Bryan Washington’s Memorial is stunning. Bryan Washingtons take on love, family, and responsibility is as complicated and true as life itself.

But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say good-bye. Memorial is a tour de force, truly unlike anything Ive read before.

There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other. Mike is a Japanese-American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day-care teacher, and they've been together for a few years - good years - but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, O, the Oprah Magazine, Esquire, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Refinery29, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, and Lit HubĪ funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the limits of love.īenson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Bryan washington memorial