Memorial

sleep here, in our one bedroom apartment, or exactly what that arrangement will look like. The thing about a moving train is that, sometimes, you can catch it. Some of the kids I work with, that s how their families make it into this country. If you fall, you re dead. If you re too slow, you re dead. But if you get a running start, it s never entirely gone.
           
So I don t flip the coffee table. Or one of our chairs. I don t key his car or ram it straight through the living room. After the black eye, we stopped putting our hands on each other -- we d both figured, silently, it was the least we could do.

Today, what I do is smile.

I thank Mike for letting me know.

I ask him when he s leaving, and I know that s my mistake. I m already reaching to toss my charger before he says it, tomorrow.
 
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We ve been fine. Thank you for asking.
 
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turn 30. Just like Lot, Memorial is a quietly stunning book, a masterpiece that asks us to reflect on what we owe to the people who enter our lives."  NPR

Washington deftly records the way the forces of loyalty pull the heartstrings in different directions. . . . Memorial leaves us with the sense that our true selves, like our true names, aren t necessarily bestowed at birth. They are chosen, too.   The New York Times Book Review   

Extraordinary. . . . Washington writes with ease, like a juggler who is adding in new objects all the time, except the book ends with everything aloft instead of in hand. . . . It can be difficult to share your life with someone; Washington somehow explains this anew. Memorial, on the other hand, is easy to share. The Paris Review

Bryan Washington s writing is a treasure. . . . brilliant, funny, true. Goop

A very different kind of love story. . . . Washington's deeply touching (and deeply funny) look at love, sex, family, grief, and the ways in which we take care of each other is a revelation, a reminder of how powerful a novel can be. Refinery29 

Dazzling . . . With crackling dialogue and gimlet-eyed humor, Washington paints a vivid, poignant portrait of how love, romantic and familial, is weathered and ultimately deepened by time. Esquire 

Big-hearted and moving. Harper's Bazaar

[Washington's] ability with writing the sensual pleasures of making and eating food is a good way of understanding his ability as a novelist to write about the human mind. It's such a beautiful book. . . . a pure pleasure. Rumaan Alam, The Maris Review
 
Bryan Washington writes quiet. His characters methodically chop cabbage, or slide silently from room to room. Then, bam. A quick, elliptical conversation will smack you sideways with its heft and resonance. Vulture

"[Memorial] is a love story about parents and children, colleagues and friends; it is one of circumstance, grief and forgiveness. . . . a melodic sojourn and an earnest expression of humanity." The Seattle Times
 
"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."  Minneapolis Star-Tribune 
 
"What truly makes Memorial extraordinary especially the final section is Washington s uncanny ability to capture the elusive essence of love on nearly every page." The San Francisco Chronicle
 
"Fresh and new and daring, while also feeling wholly familiar" Advocate  

This book is so poignant and beautiful, asking questions about what it means to live a life and what it means to love. LitHub

This intimate story is about the families we are born into and the families we choose for ourselves. . . . a quiet, sensual exploration of how we decide who we stick around for. Mashable 

This sensitive novel illustrates the deeply individual ways we search for a sense of home.  RealSimple

At once a love story, a tale of self-actualization, and an ode to family in every sense of the word.  Popsugar
 
"With wit and humor, Washington tackles race, class, identity and queerness. . . . In a story about first loves and family, both men will change as they discover their own truths. Parade
 
Washington creates two men so real it feels like even though the book ended, they will keep on living and figuring it out and making mistakes and falling down and getting back up again. Alma

Bryan Washington writes some of contemporary fiction s most tender stories. . . . Queer love, family dynamics, Houston settings, and cooking . . . . the young writer has brilliantly united them all in his new novel. New York Observer
 
Not only an exploration of a kaleidoscopically diverse America. . . but a moving portrait of two young men who are figuring out exactly who they are in this world. Anyone who enjoyed Washington s dreamlike yet textured meditations on life in Houston in Lot will be enchanted with Memorial.   The Millions

Tender, funny, and heartbreaking, this tale of family, food... and growing apart feels intimate and expansive at the same time.   Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

Vividly written... Washington s novel is richly layered and thrives in the quiet moments between lovers and family members.... There is passion in this novel fight scenes, sex scenes, screaming matches, and tears but it reaches a deep poetic realism when Washington explores the space between characters... A subtle and moving exploration of love, family, race, and the long, frustrating search for home.   Kirkus Reviews, STARRED review

This is a love story, writ large, that sings. . . . Washington writes about race, class, family, love, and the idea of home with evocative nuance and phenomenal dialogue.   Booklist, STARRED review  
 
Memorial is a true page-turner. I was entranced, picking this book up every chance I got. Bryan Washington is a great writer and I love the story he tells here. Intriguing. Each character stays with me.   Jacqueline Woodson, author of Red At the Bone and Another Brooklyn

Memorial dares to insist on the mundane, thoroughly lived life as a site of perennial hope, joy, and abundance. It casts a fresh take on the American family that becomes truer because of its disparate origins, the queerness of its genesis, and the buoyed wonder it finds in surviving grief and loss towards the rare and forgiving ground of difficult, hard-won love. All of this done in sentences clean and clear as cut glass. This book, in what feels like a new vision for the 21st century novel, made me happy.  
Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous

I was entranced by this deeply original and wholly absorbing novel. Bryan Washington creates characters who are complex, interesting, and three dimensional, and made me care about every single one of them. This book made me think about the nature of love, and family, and anger, and grief, and love again.
Jasmine Guillory, author of The Wedding Date and The Proposal

Brilliantly details the smallest moments that mean the absolute most, the heartbreakingly human limitations of how we love one another, and with all its many roommates and zip codes and implications, Memorial beautifully rests in how difficult it is to ever truly go home.
Kiley Reid, author of Such a Fun Age

Memorial is a tour de force, truly unlike anything I've read before. Bryan Washington's take on love, family, and responsibility is as complicated and true as life itself. I can't stop thinking about it.
Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto

Bryan Washington s Memorial is stunning. Everything happening in this book is so intimate, sensual, and wise. It is a funny book with much sadness and love. It is a story about relationships, and family, and what it means to have and not have home, in Houston, Texas, and in Osaka, Japan. It is also a surprising page-turner. The scenes and characters here couldn t be more alive and vivid. I love this book.
Tommy Orange, author of There, There
 
Bryan Washington is an expert in illuminating the way we love. Memorial perfectly captures the lives lived in-between what we do and what we say, what we need and what we allow ourselves to have. It is a beautiful heartbreak.
Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk
 
Tender like a bruise, Memorial is a novel of uncommon depth and feeling. It is about everything that matters in life: love, loss, community and communion. Bryan Washington will take your breath away.
Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation


Praise for Lot
 
  Audacious . Washington is a one-man border-eradicating crew. Luis Alberto Urrea, New York Times Book Review
 
A treat and an inspiration to witness. Ocean Vuong, GQ
 
A brilliant display of raw talent . This is the literature that I've been waiting for. Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Patsy and Here Comes the Sun
 
The promise Washington displays is real and large. Dwight Garner, New York Times
 
Stunning It s hard to overstate what an accomplishment Lot is. Michael Schaub, NPR
 
Funny, sad, wise & very alive in the best way. Curtis Sittenfeld (Twitter)
 
The kind of stories I am always longing to read. Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
 
Gut-wrenching and powerful. Cosmopolitan
 
Lot spills over with life funny, tender, and profane. Entertainment Weekly