Search results for ""Author Bryan Washington""

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Book SynopsisBryan Washington is a writer from Houston. His fiction and essays have appeared in, among other publications, the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the BBC, Vulture and the Paris Review. He's also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 winner, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, a PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize finalist, a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist, the recipient of an O. Henry Award and the winner of the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize.BryWashing.com / @BryWashing

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Book Synopsis· Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize 2020 ·· One of Barack Obama's "Favourite Books of the Year" ·· A New York Times Critics' Top Books of 2019 ·'A superb book' Max Porter, author of Lanny____________________________________Stories of a young man finding his place among family and community in Houston, from a powerful, emerging American voice.In an apartment block, the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He's working at his family's restaurant, trying to dodge his brother's fists and resenting his older sister's absence. He's also discovering he likes boys...All around him his friends and neighbours experience the tumult of living in the margins. Their stories - of living, thriving and dying across the city's myriad neighbourhoods - are stitched throughout the boy's life to reveal a young woman caught out in an affair, the fortunes of a rag-tag baseball team and a group of young hustlers, a local drug dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, and the fate of a camera-shy mythical beast. With brilliant and soulful insight into what makes a community, a family and a life, Lot is about love in all its unsparing and unsteady forms.Trade ReviewAudacious... Profound * New York Times *Enthralling... Subtle but bruising * Guardian *Gut-wrenching and powerful * Cosmopolitan *An astonishing debut... Extraordinary * Alan Hollinghurst, New York Review of Books *A superb book * Max Porter, author of 'Lanny' *A treat and an inspiration to witness * Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous *Stunning... one of the strongest literary debuts in several years. * NPR *Washington cracks open a vibrant, polyglot side of Houston about which few outsiders are aware * New York Times *Washington's prose sings with vibrancy * The Rumpus *Phenomenal * Justin Torres, author of 'We the Animals' *Lot spills over with life - funny, tender, and profane * Entertainment Weekly *Generous, powerful, deeply engrossing * R.O. Kwon, author of 'The Incendiaries' *A brilliant display of raw talent * Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of 'Here Comes the Sun' *Unflinching... a prodigious talent. * Mat Johnson, author of 'Loving Day' and 'Pym' *Raw, soulful and moving * Jami Attenberg, author of 'The Middlesteins' *A thrilling new voice in American fiction and one to watch * Amelia Gray, author of 'Isadora' *Raw, empathic and wise... achingly intimate and brilliantly panoramic * Stefan Merrill Block, author of 'The Story of Forgetting' *Will stay with you for a very long time... powerful * Jamel Brinkley, author of 'A Lucky Man' *Depicts its author's hometown of Houston with empathy, tragedy, and exceptional specificity * Entertainment Weekly *Washington's debut reads like a love letter to Houston * New York Times *Empathetic and honest, tender and brutal at once, Lot quips with humour and explores grief and each stop in between. Lot feels like a living, breathing book... As debuts go, these characters and prose leap from the page. * Heather McDaid, The Skinny *Extraordinary * Southern Living *Lot belongs foremost to its characters, who ask to be remembered, even long after their pages have turned. * Paris Review *[F]unny, sad, wise & very alive in the best way * Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Sisterland (Twitter) *Stellar... a remarkable collection from a writer to watch. * Publishers Weekly, Starred Review *Brutal, raw and blisteringly brilliant... Outstanding. * Attitude *Compassionate, observant, tough; often funny, always authentic * The Big Issue *Visceral and raw... beautifully delicate prose... A terrific read! * Irish Times *Ambitious but never forced... Washington makes the place sing with his sharp, rap-style lyricism. * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisFrom the bestselling author of Memorial, a novel that will 'break your heart twice over, with sadness, sure, but more unexpectedly, with joy.' Rumaan AlamGrowing up , TJ was Cam's boy next door. When Cam needed a home, TJ's parents - Mae and Jin - took him in. Their family bakery became Cam's safe place. Until he left, and it wasn't anymore.Years later, Cam's world is falling apart. The love of his life, Kai, is gone: but his ghost keeps haunting Cam, and won't let go. And Cam's not sure he wants to let go, not sure he's ready. When he has a chance to return to his home town, to work in a gay bar clinging on in a changing city landscape, he takes it. Back in the same place as TJ, they circle each other warily, their banter electric with an undercurrent of betrayal, drawn together despite past and current drama. Family is family. But TJ is no longer the same person Cam left behind; he's had his own struggles. The quiet, low-key, queer kid, the one who stayed home, TJ's not sure how to navigate Cam - utterly cool, completely devastated and self-destructing - crashing back into his world.When things said - or left unsaid - become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Nourishment has many forms: eating croissants, sitting together at a table with bowls of curry, sharing history, confronting demons, growing flowers, showing up. This is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love, and by their necessary presence, create a family.Trade ReviewMasterful... Washington lays it all out with the control and artistry of a ballet choreographer * New York Times *Bryan Washington speaks for people who have too long been silenced, and the voice he has found for them is defiant, compassionate, decent and profoundly human -- Damon Galgut * Times Literary Supplement *A beautiful novel... Sensual, sometimes sad, ultimately hopeful * The Telegraph *A sensual immersion in loss, grief food and sex. Compelling... Deeply felt... Beautiful * Financial Times *Achingly and beautifully etched... Washington has a profound capacity to face the cruelty and pain of contemporary American life while offering his characters - and his readers - space for self-forgiveness, hope and nourishment * Washington Post *One of the best books I've read this year. Truly masterful * Roxane Gay, author of Difficult Women *Family Meal is filled with love-for the sensual pleasure of life, the places that we call home, the beauty of the people around us. This novel will break your heart twice over, with sadness, sure, but more unexpectedly, with joy. It takes a generous writer to show us the world in this way, and Bryan Washington is one of our best. * Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind *Family Meal is everything that Bryan Washington's work has promised so far: a fiercely written, by turns heartbreaking, terrifying and horny gaze on American masculinity, friendship and love, always with a clear sense of place and environment. Its take on grief and desire, of selfishness and generosity, and of the ways in which the Black masc body might be dismantled, or caressed, is sex-positive and thrillingly true-to-life. I found refuge in it, and will always fall hard on anything Washington writes. * Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk *Brimming with food, sex, joy, intimacy, hella specific jokes, and the broken tools that we inherit to save our lives, Family Meal is nourishment. An absolutely gorgeous book. * Mary H.K. Choi, author of Yolk *

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Book SynopsisA SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'This feels like a vision for the 21st-century novel... It made me happy' Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly GorgeousBenson and Mike are two young guys who have 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 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, while 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...Funny and profound, Memorial is about family in all its strange forms, becoming who you're supposed to be and the outer limits of love.NAMED A BOOK TO WATCH IN 2021 BY:SUNDAY TIMES THE TIMES DAILY MAIL THE TELEGRAPH RADIO 4 IRISH TIMESTrade ReviewA tender, wistful, often profound story about a deteriorating romance between two twentysomething men... Lo-fi and intimate * Sunday Times *Funny and moving... Memorial confirms Washington as a writer not just to watch, but to read now * The Times *A masterclass in empathy... Washington transforms revelations into cliff-hangers, like Elena Ferrante. He writes layered sex scenes, like Garth Greenwell * Guardian *A tender and moving story about the ties that bind us to those we love, sometimes against our better judgment or our strongest will * The Telegraph *Washington is a technically dazzling writer * Alan Hollinghurst, New York Review of Books *A triumph * Paul Bailey, Literary Review *Dazzling... With crackling dialogue and gimlet-eyed humour, Washington paints a vivid, poignant portrait of how love, romantic and familial, is weathered and ultimately deepened by time * Esquire *A fresh, vibrant love story that interweaves race, queerness, nationality, family, and intimacy with narrative ease * Vogue *Brilliantly details the smallest moments that mean the absolute most, the heartbreakingly human limitations of how we love one another * Kiley Reid, author of Such a Fun Age *Memorial 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. * Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous *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 *Stunning. Everything happening in Memorial is so intimate, sensual, and wise. I love this book. * Tommy Orange, author of There There *A true page-turner. I was entranced. * Jacqueline Woodson, author of Another Brooklyn *Made me think about the nature of love, and family, and anger, and grief, and love again. * Jasmine Guillory, author of The Proposal *Bryan Washington is an expert in illuminating the way we love. It is a beautiful heartbreak. * Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk *It is about everything that matters in life. * Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation *Wryly funny, gently devastating * Entertainment Weekly *A beautiful, unusual examination of the difference between love and care, and what happens when they merge * Washington Post *This book is so poignant and beautiful, asking questions about what it means to live a life and what it means to love * LitHub *Implicit in a book about changing relationships and titled Memorial is the question of what is being preserved. The book preserves Houston and Osaka. It preserves the feeling of being young and lost. It preserves the food that gives us comfort and nourishment and purpose. * The New York Times *Wonderfully irreverent and heart-meltingly tender * Oprah Magazine *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 *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 *Big-hearted and moving * Harper's Bazaar *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 *This sensitive novel illustrates the deeply individual ways we search for a sense of home. * RealSimple *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 *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 *At once a love story, a tale of self-actualization, and an ode to family in every sense of the word. * Popsugar *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 *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 *At once fresh and new and daring, while also feeling wholly familiar * The Advocate *A love story so multifaceted and emotionally nuanced as to feel transformative * Seattle Times *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 *[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 *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 *I really loved this book. It's tender and touching * David Nicholls *Brilliant * Evie Wyld *Set between Houston, Texas, and the Japanese city of Osaka, this is a tender, wistful, often profound story about a deteriorating romance between two twentysomething men. It deepens themes from Washington's short stories: the meaning of community, the power of food to bring people together and the impact of absent fathers. * Sunday Times *

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