Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus
Original language
English
Weblink
http://www.brywashing.com

MEMORIAL

Bryan Washington

A funny, sexy, profound dramedy about two young people at a crossroads in their relationship 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. Memorial is 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.

Bryan Washington has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, Tin House, One Story, Bon Appétit, MUNCHIES, American Short Fiction, GQ, FADER, The Awl, and Catapult.

DINGE, AN DIE WIR NICHT GLAUBEN
Deutsch von Werner Loecher-Lawrence
[ HC Kein und Aber 08/2021]
Available products
Book

Published 2020-10-01 by Riverhead

Comments

UK: Atlantic Books; Finland: Otava; Brazil: Intrinseca; France: Lattès; Italy: NN Editore; NL: Nijgh & Van Ditmar; Poland: Cyranka;

A24 won the heated 10-bidder auction for TV rights to Bryan Washington's MEMORIAL, with Scott Rudin and Eli Bush attached as producers.

“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.” (starred review)

“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, Pulitzer Prize finalist for There There “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 “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 and The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing