![]() ![]() This leaves Ben and Mitsuko as odd-couple roommates. Ben works at a day-care center, and Mike has cooking-related jobs.Įach man has parents so terrible - mean, alcoholic, self-absorbed, neglectful - that collectively they paint a bleak picture of their generation.Īt the novel’s outset, Mitsuko, Mike’s sharp-tongued, antagonistic mom, flies back to Texas from Japan to visit Mike and Ben just as Mike announces he’s going to Japan to reunite with his long-absent father, who is dying of cancer. Mike is Asian American, born in Japan and raised in Texas. It’s fascinating to watch such a brilliant writer of short fiction expand into the longer form, going deeper into his main characters, who are at once hard to love and hard to forget.īen and Mike, millennials who’ve been together for four years, share an apartment in Houston’s historically Black Third Ward. That said, the novel has a lot going for it, one of the best things being that it’s by Washington. Now comes “Memorial,” Washington’s debut novel. ![]() Washington’s voice - funny, profane, angry, tender, unblinking - leapt from the page in a way that felt desirable, new and necessary. ![]() Bryan Washington lit up 2019 with “Lot,” his remarkable collection of linked short stories set in Houston. ![]()
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