MEMORIAL

Benson and Mike, a mixed-race couple in Houston, search for the truth about themselves, each other, and their families.

This debut novel from Washington—author of the award-winning story collection Lot (2019)—is split into three vividly written sections. The first and third are narrated by Benson, an African American man living in Houston with his boyfriend, Mike, who narrates the middle section. Benson and Mike are on the verge of breaking up, but their passion for each other keeps them from being able to fully pull away. Both men have families they feel distant from: Benson’s father is an alcoholic who never fully accepted his son’s homosexuality, and Mike’s divorced parents have both left Houston for their native Japan. At the start of the novel, Mike’s mother, Mitsuko, flies to Houston to visit him at the same time that his father, Eiju, falls seriously ill back in Osaka. Mike picks Mitsuko up from the airport, leaves her with Benson, then flies across the ocean to visit Eiju, whom he hasn’t seen in years. Neither Benson nor Mitsuko is happy about being stuck with each other, but they slowly develop a relationship that’s not quite friendship and not quite family. They both love the same man, and that’s enough to help them understand each other. In Osaka, Mike cares for his sick, grumpy father and helps him run his bar though their relationship is strained. Mike isn’t rushing to forgive his homophobic father for leaving the family in Houston, and Eiju is cold and distant. Both Mike and Benson fall into relationships with other men while they're apart, and ultimately, both have to decide how to forgive the people closest to them. Washington’s novel is richly layered and thrives in the quiet moments between lovers and family members. Benson and Mike know they could hurt each other, hurt their families, hurt themselves, or they could say words to heal and bring people together. As Mike says, “How did everything come to such a turning point between us? Quietly, I guess. The big moments are never big when they’re actually fucking happening.” 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. When so much is left unsaid, that’s when this novel speaks the loudest.

A subtle and moving exploration of love, family, race, and the long, frustrating search for home.