Memorial
A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
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3.8 • 184 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
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 Hub
“A masterpiece.” —NPR
“No other novel this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America.” —The Washington Post
“Wryly funny, gently devastating.” —Entertainment Weekly
A 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.
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. 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. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.
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 goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. 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. 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.
Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
What makes a relationship last? Bryan Washington’s quirky and emotional debut novel—his short-story collection, Lot, came out in 2019—explores this eternal question in a way that’s both touching and hilariously cringeworthy. The book’s protagonists, Mike and Benson, are coasting. Sure, they love each other and the sex is, well, sexy, but how deep does their connection really go? They find out when Mike’s Japanese mother shows up for an unannounced visit…just as Mike abruptly takes off to visit his estranged, dying father in Japan. As Mike reconnects with his parents’ culture and Ben becomes odd-couple roommates with his boyfriend’s mom, we get to know both characters’ complexities and the closely held secrets that have kept them at a distance from each other. Washington makes us really know and care for his characters and the strange journeys they’re on. Will their paths ultimately lead them back together? We couldn’t wait to find out.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Washington's debut novel (after the collection Lot), the fractures in a couple's relationship span from Houston, Tex., to Osaka, Japan. Ben, a day care teacher, lives with his cook boyfriend, Mike, in Houston's slowly gentrifying Third Ward. When Mike's mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Houston from Japan with plans to stay at Ben and Mike's place, awkwardness ensues. Mike has just left for Osaka, to reconnect with his absent and now terminally ill father, and put Ben in charge of entertaining Mitsuko until he gets back. Ben eventually adjusts to having her around, just as he must navigate his changing relationship with his black middle-class family, who have always shied away from Ben's HIV-positive status and talked around his father's drinking. Meanwhile, in Osaka, Mike has found his father, Eiju, at the bar he owns, where Eiju has a dedicated assistant and crowd of regulars who have no idea Eiju's dying or that he has a son. Mike starts working at the bar so he can spend Eiju's final days with him. Though Mike still grapples with how to feel about Eiju, who made his biggest impact on Mike's life by abandoning the family, father and son are able to build a tentative relationship. Tender, funny, and heartbreaking, this tale of family, food (Mike cooks for their Venezuelan neighbors; Mitsuko makes Ben congee), and growing apart feels intimate and expansive at the same time. Washington shows readers more of the unforgettable Houston he introduced in his stories, and comfortably expands his range into the setting of Osaka, applying nuance in equal measure to his characters and the places they're tied to.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant Voice
Just as Mike’s mother arrives in Houston from Japan, he leaves her with his boyfriend, Benson, in an apartment that they share. Split into three sections, the first and third are told from Benson’s point of view, with a middle section from Mike’s. In the first section, as Mike goes to Japan to care for his estranged father dying of cancer, Benson and Mike’s mother, Mitsuko spend the days rotating around each other, distant by drawn together by their gravity. The middle describes Mike’s experiences in Japan. The third part starts with Mike’s return.
This is a book about family and relationships. Mike and Benson struggle as their relationship reaches five years, asking what it means to be in a relationship. With their own experiences they bring a number of challenges to give and receive love. They are shaped by their own experiences with their families, and their interpretations of those experiences. Mike struggles to connect with a father who abandoned them years ago and moved back to Japan. Benson has shut down when his family pushed him out after learning his secret. Food connects all of the characters. From Osaka to Texas, making and sharing food is a big theme of this book.
I was blown away by this novel. In the first part, the writing is cold, detached, almost unemotional as we see the world through Benson. But the second part changes the point of view to Mike and we get a different writing style, and a different view of the world. Capturing each character and telling their stories through two different lenses shows how good Washington is. At times neither of these characters are very likable or sympathetic, but it’s hard not to feel their pain and still cheer for their successes. The other characters provide some really fun, humorous notes in this occasionally sad story. The way Washington weaves the past and the present together and develops both Benson and Mike at the same time was masterful. The writing is spare and direct, but so full. Do yourself a favor and preorder this book right now. You will not be sorry. Thanks to Netgalley and Riverhead books for the electronic advanced copy. ★★★★★ • eBook • Fiction - Literary, LGBT • Published by Riverhead books on October 27, 2020. ◾︎
Too much and not enough
I had to force myself through this book. The writing style is pretty juvenile in the beginning. The use of “I said” “mike said” “said mike” said a million times. There was little to no environmental descriptors, the story was redundant, too long on the most insignificant parts, and too short when it started getting good. It gets good after mikes section.
The positive: it highlighted the meaning in every day life. The importance of sit down meals, every day community, and building relationships from dust. This story had a lot of potential, it was just really hard to stay engaged.
First time ever I stopped reading a book
OK I took a chance I saw the interview on one of the morning shows it was kind of excited about the writer and with the book was . I will admit not exactly my type type of book but I took a chance and washed I read the first 50 pages and could get no farther. Although I am sure some will like his style it’s just not for me