This book was phenomenal in every way. The relationship between Ben and Mike was so real, i have never read a fictional relationship that has made me feel this way before. I loved Mike’s mum, i loved Omar, two small characters that really added to the book. I loved the ending, and Mike’s mother is a true gem as she encompasses the thoughts we need to remind ourselves. This book is about the small things that make up the big things: nothing is a waste, unless everything is a waste. As a lesbian too, reading lgbt characters means a lot to me, and i know i will be reading this author’s book for a long time. An outstanding writer.

I tried to keep reading this story but I could not get interested in it. There was not enough to the characters to keep me engaged. Sorry.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

I had no idea what to expect of this book. It was a love story between two men who had almost fallen into a relationship and were at a crucial point in it when one of the partners had to go away at the time his mother came to stay. The characters were well drawn and it was an interesting read. I enjoyed the book but wasn’t moved by it and some parts flowed less easily than others.

I settled down to read this, this morning. I flew through it, I really enjoyed the way it was written however felt there was too much emphasis on the sex, and there was no real resolution with the ending

Mitsuko was my favourite and i would've loved to have delved into her character more

A charming and lovely read. It captured the highs and lows of a relationship beautifully. Id highly recommended this read & thank the Netgalley for the opportunity to read this beautiful book.

A bittersweet story about the messy and complicated nature of love and life. I enjoyed reading this, it felt very emotionally honest and the author captured going through the breakdown of a relationship perfectly.

One couple, two people and many stories to tell between them.

This wasn't the straightforward story I was expecting, it was better. The story is told from two main perspectives, spanning both present and past. Showing both shared experiences, how both have reacted independently and their individual stories and history.

I would have really liked to have been able to read a bit more, to find out what happened next. But that's what kept me hooked the whole way through... I also understand that what we don't know is not always as important as what we know already or what has already happened.

I started reading Memorial but I'm afraid I have put it aside as it hasn't grabbed me. Maybe I will go back to it though, so for the moment I'm keeping my options open.

I have heard nothing but praise for Washington's writing and was excited to get my hands on an ARC of Memorial.

Memorial is the story of a gay couple, Benson and Mike, living in America and you start with Benson's POV, then Mike's and back to Benson for the last section. The novel tells of their relationship with each other, their families and themselves and explores what it is to be human today.

This is one of those books where when you are reading it you don't want to put it down and when you put it down you have no real drive to pick it back up again. I am not sure why this is, perhaps the flowing and unpunctuated style or the unlikeable narrators - either way, I enjoyed Memorial but I think I had built it up too much in my mind before starting it. I think this would have worked far better as a short story or even two linked short stories.

3.5/5

“It's like we're in some fucked-up rom-com, I said. It's like we're both fucked-up rom-com villains.”

Maybe it's my fault for I 'hyping' myself too much but I found Memorial to be a wee bit disappointing. First of all, the lack of quotations marks. So many authors are using this technique that it seems passé. And what does this stylistic choice accomplish? If we really wanted to write as 'realistically' as possible we wouldn't bother with punctation marks (or with noting 'he/she said').

Set in Houston, Memorial follows a Benson and Mike who live together and are sort of dating. Mike, who is Japanese American, works as a chef at Mexican restaurant, while Benson, who is black, is a dare care teacher. The everyday challenges of cohabitation and their different attitudes towards monogamy, money, and work, result in a rather rocky relationship. Arguments give away to tense silences, and the two begins to question whether being together still make sense.
When Mike announces that he will be leaving America to reconnect with his dying father—who owns a bar in Tokyo—Benson isn't happy. Worst still, Mike's mother, Mitsuko, who has just flown to Houston, will be staying with Benson in their apartment.
Both Benson and Mike's narratives are interspersed with short snippets from their past. We gain a sort of impression of their family life, as well as reading of their previous sexual partners and of the early days in their relationship.
During this time apart Benson grows close to another man, and reconnects with his own father, an alcoholic who isn't too enthused by his son's sexual orientation. Mitsuko begins to teach him how to cook, and while the two don't get on particularly well, they get used to each other.
Mike instead struggles to get along with his father. He begins to work alongside him in his bar, and while he doesn't seem particularly keen on the job or the clientele, he sort of adjusts to his new environment.
I didn't particularly care for Benson nor Mike. They share the same kind of nondescript personality (they are the type of people who shrug a lot). Their voices were almost interchangeable, which didn't really benefit their characterisation. The sex scenes were either predictably awkward, perfunctory, or frantic. I guess Washington wanted to depict realistic sex, but he almost goes overboard, so that his sex scenes verge on the ridiculous (I mean: "grunting like otters against a dingy, dented stall"). To be fair, however, there was once instance that made me chuckle: "We fucked. It sucked."
The dialogue was okay, sort of mumblecore-esque. The secondary characters felt kind of flat. They both have separated parents, with 'broken/brusque' fathers and 'sardonic/direct' mothers. Mike's whole section with his father felt very schmalzy (not that I don't care for dying-father/son stories in which the two reconnect, I loved Medicine Walk).
Sadly, I found this underwhelming. This is the kind of novel that tries too hard to be a 'real' and 'unfiltered' story about modern love...but I don't know. The characters spend a lot of the time watching dots on their screen, which, yeah, it's kind of relatable but it soon gets repetitive. The story does incorporate discussions about race, class, and sexuality, but I can't say that these issues were explored with any particular depth.
Just because Washington style didn't work for me doesn't mean that I thought that Memorial was a bad novel. If you enjoyed Exciting Times you might actually find this to be a highly satisfying read.
8 likes

I enjoyed this book and happily kept turning the pages, wanting to love it, but some things did fall short for me.

I love a split narrative so enjoyed having both Benson and Mike's point of view about their relationship, and exploration about their own childhoods and family dynamics – and particularly how their sexuality played a part in shaping these relationships. Both of their sets of parents are flawed, but well-intentioned, and Bryan developed these relationships well, as the two men learned to forgive and understand their parents' perspectives as the novel progressed.

I found Benson's half at the start compelling and well-developed, but thought that Mike's fell short for me somehow. Although this was intended as a character study, I'd have loved to have felt Osaka brought to life a little more. A big part of the narrative is how the two men are worlds apart, emotionally and literally, so I would have loved to have really felt the physical distance between.them with a huge contrast in life in Texas and life in Japan. This seemed especially important to me as they both have a big decision to make about these two worlds at the end.

I also felt there needed to be more development in the relationships between Benson and Mike's mother. There were small moments that connected them, but they were mostly shown as simply (or even reluctantly) co-existing in the same apartment. So I didn't feel it was that believable towards the end when Mike had returned, that his mother and Benson suddenly had this powerful bond. I really wanted there to be, but it didn't deliver.

Bryan's style of writing is unique and accessible, in a way that you can keep reading 'just one more chapter' for hours. In spite of my disappointment with some areas of how the story develops, I do think Bryan interrogates family dynamics brilliantly, brings the difficult subject of HIV into the mainstream in an accessible way (and in a way that doesn't DEFINE Benson, but is just another part of the character), and normalises reading about gay relationships and sex – all of which brings my 3.5 stars up to 4.

I loved Memorial, a novel about complicated love - romantic, sexual, familial. Subtle, funny and intimate, Bryan Washington refuses to neaten the story into anything like a tidy and traditional love story or family story and it is all the better for that. The main characters Benson and Mike are frustrating at times, and they have difficult parents, but as a reader I really cared about them. Washington writes well about place (Houston and Osaka) and food (Mike is a chef). The fact that this novel doesn’t answer every question, tie up every end, means that it lingers long in the mind after reading.

This is the story of a gay couple, Mike & Benson. Written from the viewpoint of Benson, then Mike and later Benson again, they are both thinkers but do not seem to be able to commicate their feelings with each other or even know what their their feelings for each other really are.Both have issues with their families, both because of their homosexuality and because of other factors which are explored in the book. Benson gradually builds up a relationship with Mike's mother when they are left in Mike's house together when he goes to japan to be with his dying father.
Lots of talk about emotions, but as a reader you have to decide what the resolution is for yourself and I missed the interpretation of what and why things happened. On the other hand, men do not tend to analyse their emotions as much as women, so may be this book reflects that. I do feel I know the characters well at the end, but am still in the dark about some of the relationships. I have mixed feelings about this one and would ideally give it 3,5 stars , nevertheless it is mostly an interesting read and explores family relationships in a way which gives you food for thought .
Thank you to Net galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

This book was not for me. The story follows Mike and Benson as they "try" to sort out their dysfunction relationship. Mike is Japanese and Benson is Black and they have been in a relationship for close to 4 years and they are finding it is dwindling. The novel is split between the prospect of Mike and Benson. Very early on in the novel, Mike goes to Japan to see his father as he has just found out that he is terminally ill. The day before Mike goes to Japan, his mother arrives from Japan. So Benson and Mike's mother are forced to spend time together whilst the one connection they have is in Japan, the whole situation was weird and stilted. I couldn't fathom the point of their relationship at all, but at least, in the end, they come to tolerate each other. Benson also deals with family issues in the book, however again it feels stilted. Mike basically gets to know his Dad again, and ofc his Dad who he hasn't seen in over 17 years is a grump and wonders why Mike has even come.

The issue with this book is the characters are boring and I cannot understand why after finding out the ins and outs of their relationship, why either of them is "trying" to salvage it. I also use trying loosely because they both show in each of their perspectives that perhaps this relationship isn't actually for them. I simply couldn't understand why one would struggle to find meaning in a relationship when it seemed there was barely any meaning in the first place. They seemed to have gotten together out of convenience and laziness rather than lust and passion. As a result, it didn't leave me rooting for their love story, I really thought they would have been better apart. I found both characters just felt like reluctant people and the whole story just felt so disjointed and random too and I couldn't find a single character I liked, and I didn't enjoy the overall story. I also really don't enjoy the "no speech marks thing", it very much reminds me of Sally Rooney and I'm just not here for me.

These are characters like few others I have read...honest, pithy, jaded, unvarnished.
A relationship that is rubbing along nicely but is disrupted by death, travel and desire.
I particularly like the growing relationship between Mitsuko and Benson, forced together as Mike leaves the country to visit his dad. Each relationship has it own strife but in amongst all the trouble there are real shining moments of love, tolerance and joy.
A great read.

The only note I wrote in my copy of Memorial is that I felt like I knew these characters and having completed it, I still feel that way. This is a queer novel but is not JUST a queer novel- Memorial is about relationships between partners, family, friends and communities. We are served up these characters warts and all and I found them all the better for it, completely drawn into a story that somehow creates common experiences twinned in Houston's Third Ward and Osaka Japan. I have never read anything by this author before but I enjoyed the effortless teaching in this work so much that I will definitely explore more.

This novel follows the widely-acclaimed short story collection, 'Lot', and even though I have not read the whole collection yet, I can see some close similarities between these and 'Memorial' - a thought-provoking novel which deals with, among other things, race, sexuality and friendships.

The novel starts with Benson's (Ben's) perspective - we see Ben, an African-American, in his home, in Houston, just as his partner, Mike, a Japanese-American, is heading off to Osaka, to take care of his terminally-ill father - and, at the same time, his mother, Mitsuko, arrives. What follows is an uncomfortable situation between Ben and Mitsuko, who don't really know each other and have, to save the least, very different perspectives on life.

Ben works as a childcare worker and is close friends with Ximena, a colleague, and, later, Omar, the older brother of a boy who he looks after. This relationship develops into something more, something passionate and sexual, while concurrently, Mike is nursing his father - Eiju - and manning the bar he owns in the city. Their father-son relationship is somewhat fragmented, too, and even though Mike, Eiju and Mitsuko have a far from conventional existence, there is something there that bonds them together.

Mike's perspective, which is sandwiched in the middle of the book, deals with his life in Osaka - essentially, he is waiting for his father to die, whilst deciding what to with Ben. Should their relationship continue? Is the fact that they have only declared their love for each 'a handful of times' be a severe warning? They have a rampant sex life, often fucking (Mike's words) after fighting. Later, when Mike arrives back in Houston and spends time with Ben and his mother, as well as an awkward evening with Ben's parents and sister, Lydia, there is time to think. And even though both men feel there is something better elsewhere, it is Mitsuko's viewpoint (fairly soft, surprisingly, considering her harsh nature) that wins over.

I did enjoy 'Memorial' but there's something subtly jarring which is preventing me from awarding it 5*. I put this down to the discordance which is evident between many characters: Ben and Mike; Ben and Mitsuko; Mike and Eiju; Mike and Mitsuko; Ben and Lydia... and so on. Perhaps, the relationships are a little too fragmented here. Having said this, Washington's novel is extremely observant and well-written - and the themes are likely to be are all-too-familiar in our modern, stressful world.

This was a lovely elegy to the end of a relationship, as Mike and Ben spend time apart and start to realise what they need.
Moving and a little sad at times, this was a gentle read.

This isn’t the sort of book I normally go for but I loved the cover and was intrigued by the premise so I requested it on netgalley.

Well, I suspect I should be reading more of this type of book! I was absolutely hooked by Memorial from the beginning and read it in 2 days. The characters are honest and interesting, multi-faceted and flawed, but somehow also very likeable. I enjoyed watching the story play out, but the real star here is the writing, which is just beyond beautiful. Memorial made me think and at the end it made me cry.

I know it will stay with me for a long time. It’s an absolutely brilliant book and I would recommend it to anyone.

I’m so grateful for my free copy. Thank you.

PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION:

“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.”

NO SPOILERS

I have not read Bryan Washington before so I came to this with no expectations but now I expect his previous work to be excellent.

Memorial is a tale of a relationship breaking down while others strengthen, of learning to understand, of acceptance, of regret, of forgiveness…and that to me makes it sound as dull as ditchwater. But it is far from dull.

The tale itself was enough to keep me reading but it was the style which had me read it in a couple of days (in the garden, in the sun…so maybe that helped!)

It is written in the first person, a perspective I always enjoy, beginning with Ben, switching to Mike then back to Ben, so no hopping between both, which can be distracting and confusing. The narrative is in the past and present tense, which takes us back and forth with ease. The style changes with the narrator and I liked both. Both are quick, easy and punchy. Both are very intimate and I felt like a trusted confidant and totally involved. The whole book is believable and the characters very real. Washington gives us just enough about each so we understand their roles and their importance to Ben and Mike. There is no waffling, no filler, no struggling for word count (yes, it happens) and every sentence is crucial to the whole; I really, really like it.

Unless recommended by a respected source, I rarely pick up contemporary fiction as so much of it seems to be formulaic, churned out thriller or romance, as whilst I don’t mind either if well written, they seldom are and it is hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. Memorial is more a memoir and it is very well written. It is not “wordy” but it is definitely crafted, even visually.

If I am not familiar with an author, I do not research them until I have read the book; I was surprised Bryan Washington is only 27...he writes with the wisdom of many more years.

And does that relationship really breakdown or simply become more honest, something else, something better?

“Everything looks different in context. All of it.”

Thank you to NetGalley and Atlantic for the Advanced Reader Copy of the book, which I have voluntarily reviewed.