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Memorial

Bryan Washington

2020336 pagesabout 5–8 hours
2020
first published
  • 2020Penguin Publishing Group · ENGISBN 9780593087275
  • 2021Atlantic Books, Limited · ENGISBN 9781838950101
  • 2021Atlantic Books, Limited · ENGISBN 9781838950095
  • 2021Penguin Publishing Group · 384 pages · ENGISBN 9780593087282
  • 2021Thorndike Press Large Print · 447 pagesISBN 9781432885120
  • 2022Anagrama · 352 pagesISBN 9788433981189
  • 2022L´ALTRA · 336 pagesISBN 9788412539509
  • Atlantic BooksISBN 9781838951320

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.

How it reads

Character focusSmall ensemble

When and where

ThemesFamily

Content notesnot yet assessed

Quotesnone available

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