... tender and exhilarating ... The novel explores an entire system of forces that shape our identities—history, both personal and national, race, gender, sexuality and the movement of people across international, cultural and class borders—and dramatizes the collision of individual choice with these external pressures ... If this sounds like a lot to process in just 300 pages, it isn’t, because Memorial’s restless excavation of modern identity is artfully wrapped up in a romance narrative that is also a transpacific quest for parental love ... [a] wisecrack along racial lines perfectly illustrates the novel’s cultural awareness and confidence, as well as Washington’s fine judgement of timing and tricky situations.

Memorial isn't just every bit as brilliant as its predecessor. It's somehow even better ... part of what makes Memorial so believable is Washington's uncanny ability to draw the reader's attention to what's not said as much as what is. The dialogue in the novel is pitch-perfect, but it's in the spaces between the talking — the awkward silences, the questions left unanswered — that the characters reveal themselves ... Just like Lot, Memorial is a quietly stunning book, a masterpiece that asks us to reflect on what we owe to the people who enter our lives.

A sense of self-estrangement pervades Memorial which centers on the relationship between Mike and his Black boyfriend, Ben (short for Benson) ... From the beginning, then, Washington lays out the various factors that lay a claim on us and help determine who we are: race, nationality, sexual orientation, family. Over the course of the novel these vectors cross and get tangled up, binding Mike and Ben in knots ... In plain, confident prose, Washington deftly records the way the forces of loyalty pull the heartstrings in different directions. The tone and dialogue are cool, almost jaded, gesturing obliquely at the emotions roiling beneath the surface ... Memorial leaves us with the sense that our true selves, like our true names, aren’t necessarily bestowed at birth. They are chosen, too.

Memorial is a profoundly sensitive story about the rough boundaries of love in a multicultural society. In fact, no other novel I’ve read this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America. The range of cultures, races, generations and sexual identities contending with one another in these pages is not a woke argument; it’s the nature of modern family life fully realized ... Memorial unfolds as a series of isolated moments, many only a page long, some merely a single line. Told first from Ben’s perspective and then from Mike’s, these moments continually blend past and present, enacting each narrator’s confession as a kind of prose poem ... Washington inhabits these two men so naturally that the sophistication of this form is rendered entirely invisible, and their narratives unspool as spontaneously and clearly as late-night conversation ... In a disposable society, Memorial is a testament to the permanence of filial connections, a clear-eyed acknowledgment that our relatives don’t always behave nicely, but they’re with us for life.

Another debut novel from a young writer about relationships. Oh good! But wait, come back: this one is not only distinctive — coming from a black, gay perspective — but pretty distinguished, making the particular into the universal ... The title suggests a sturdy permanence, but Memorial is a monument to the shifting sands of modern life. In a world where ownership is old hat and life is held by subscription, everything is provisional, including lovers ... The plot kicks off in promising style ... And so the world of the book, where Ben and Mike’s relationship was the keystone, is destabilised. Text messages are typed but not sent ... The sense of qualification and uncertainty extends to the prose: uninflected dialogue, plain punctuation and, of course, no speech marks, so everything is low-key. This can make the story feel thin at times, but Washington knows what he’s doing: he can be funny and moving, and he can depict in a few lines the character of a person ... What began as a novel about a couple turns into one about the communities we set up with families, friends and colleagues. And it’s a primer in the modern world for anyone who, like Mike’s dad, feels that 'I just don’t know the rules. They keep changing on me.' So a novel about relationships, yes, but one that makes you think: 'Well, what else is there, after all?'

It flies us from Houston to Osaka and back to Houston, transporting us from Benson’s head to Mike’s and back to Benson’s. A writer in his 20s, Washington already shows poise with his subject matter and cool control over his formal options. What I really want to say is, he’s a chill writer. Characters haunt dating apps; they text; they snap photographs and send them to each other, and Washington reproduces them on the page without fanfare or self-congratulation at how contemporary his novel is ... Memorial reveals our incredible openness to believe, excuse, or empathise with whoever we feel closest to at a given moment ... What is so impressive about Washington is his restraint. He knows how to temper and balance. He does not indulge character and voice – or other pampered aspects of the literary novel – at the expense of plot. He tugs his plot forward by braiding the past with the present, home with work, Houston with Osaka. Race, sexuality, grief, trauma and class are timely subjects and Washington handles them with seriousness but not reverence. He can be funny without clowning around for approval. Characters fight physically; they hurt each other in so many ways. Yet none of it goes reported to authorities. Memorial reads like the unreported lives of people getting by without the mediation of police, social workers or therapists. In some ways, these Americans are the true undocumented people of the country ... The book’s short sections can feel staccato. Perhaps Washington mistrusts our attention span ... The achievement of Memorial is not in its mainstreaming of gay sexuality but its accomplishment of something far simpler and foundational to the novel: what is it like to see the world from Benson’s perspective? What is it like to see the world from Mike’s? Only in shifting perspectives, in temporarily relinquishing our own, can we inhabit a relationship from two sides. After a year that has formalised the appropriate distance between humans, Washington offers that fundamental skill, so lacking in American politics – to attend to another person’s subjectivity as if your life depended on theirs.

There are many histories interwoven in Memorial, Bryan Washington’s bittersweet novel of connections and disconnections ... Yes, Memorial is another novel about lost 20y-somethings, but Washington makes the reader care deeply about his characters who above all want to feel a sense of home. That word—home—resonates throughout the novel ... a deeply moving book by a young novelist with a unique voice and a strong sense of optimism.

... if you thought Lot was good, Washington’s first novel is a ground-busting masterpiece ... From this superficial summary, it’s tempting to think (incorrectly) that Memorial is some kind of slightly headier rom-com. But what takes this novel well beyond just a simplistic story of two lovers who eventually learn how to come together by spending time apart is Washington’s decision to reveal the course of their journey — and the depth of both their problems and love for each other — from each of the characters’ perspectives ... We also find out Benson is HIV-positive. (To Washington’s credit, his nuanced portrayal of Benson’s matter-of-fact attitude toward his status is the most accurate I’ve seen in modern literature) ... With a book so layered and, frankly, one that succeeds on so many fronts, it can be difficult to pinpoint the one overarching magical quality that sets it apart. In Memorial, Washington’s descriptions of food and cooking, particularly Japanese delicacies such as abura-age, konbu maki, kamaboko and spinach udon, and okonomiyaki, are to be slurped and savored ... The myriad screaming matches and sex scenes are compelling too ... As a secondary character, Mitsuko is sharp-witted and no-nonsense — and therefore thrilling company. (Her one-liners are priceless) ... But what truly makes Memorial extraordinary — especially the final section — is Washington’s uncanny ability to capture the elusive essence of love on nearly every page ... if there’s one book you should go out of your way to read in 2020, it should be this one.

[Bryan Washington] returns to gift readers with a love story so multifaceted and emotionally nuanced as to feel transformative ... Memorial strikes an extraordinary balance between plot and character development that results in pitch-perfect pacing. Washington’s skill with dialogue and humor carries the narrative surprisingly far, in addition to some stunning imagery and plotting. The balance extends to the amount of context Washington includes for each character’s life. And the settings, the cities of Houston and Osaka, breathe on their own; they are places Washington clearly knows well ... Memorial is a melodic sojourn and an earnest expression of humanity. As the world continues to struggle against isolation and we find ways to hold onto our own hearts in the face of COVID-19 and vast injustice, Memorial feels like even more of a balm.

Good as it is, it’s not Lot ... That said, the novel has a lot going for it, one of the best things being that it’s by Washington. It’s fascinating to watch such a brilliant writer of short fiction expand into the longer form, going deeper into his main characters, who are at once hard to love and hard to forget ... Each man has parents so terrible — mean, alcoholic, self-absorbed, neglectful — that collectively they paint a bleak picture of their generation ... This is no full-blooded gay romance beneath waving rainbow flags ... The nearly plotless story snares us through indirection to produce a pleasingly dark collage. Washington parts the clouds slightly in the final section to offer tentative hopeful signs for his ensemble.

At the tender heart of the book are families—natal and improvised, lost and recuperated—and the rituals that bind them ... Washington layers these intimacies scene by scene, memory by memory.

Readers familiar with Washington’s work will recognize the unadorned, authentic prose style of Memorial. It is stripped down, so much so that the appearance of an adjective like beatific—used in one of the novel’s final moments—carries the lyrical weight that a word like beatific should ... At first glance, these similarities might indicate that Benson and Mike are flat characters. The truth is that, while Benson and Mike do narrate in an almost identical style, their shared idioms and outlooks illustrate the many, often ineffable ways a long-term relationship with another person—romantic or familial—can condition how we think and feel ... As in Washington’s short fiction, no one character is beyond forgiveness. Still, I’m not convinced that this is a happy or uplifting novel. The story is too measured for that, and things are no less complicated by its end. Instead, I’m convinced by Washington’s candor, his characters, and the openness with which he approaches them.

Memoria is a powerfully subtle book about family and relationships ... this novel is an unfettered look at the intersections of race, class and connection, romantic and otherwise ... Filled with realistically drawn awkward interactions, the characters rarely articulate how they feel; they often don’t know how they feel ... Throughout the book, race and class frictions present themselves in fascinating ways ... With an easy flowing style and well developed, complex characters, Memorial is the work of a confident experienced author. It raises thought-provoking questions about race, class, and family, while providing no simple answers. Capturing the messy complexities of life, Memorial makes for a compelling read.

...engaging and beautifully crafted ... There’s a heart-wrenching revelation near the book’s end ... There’s also a tender, expansive ending that’s as satisfying as the first bowl of udon that Ben cooks and Mitsuko approves of, that Ben is so proud of he texts a photo of it to Mike ... In Memorial, love finds a way, whether it’s noodles or punctuation.

With exquisite attention to the ever-shifting spaces between people, Memorial deftly renders both grief and moments of quotidian joy, often in shared meals ... race, class and identity are addressed in an unforced way ... characters’ lack of self-involvement, despite the first-person narration, is a breath of fresh air ... Digital forms of communication are integrated seamlessly in a way that doesn’t grate.

The situational spark that begins the novel is contrived...yet the artifice soon becomes illuminating. Washington finds eloquence in colloquialism; he creates, through a variety of voices, the poetics of conversation. Little turns of phrase...create a storytelling centered within characters’ consciousness. One doesn’t feel that this is writerly paint applied to the text but is instead the very germ of how the characters experience the world ... by alternating between the present and intrusions of memory, the author creates states of mind in Mike and Benson that become the novel’s central force ... Washington’s clever use of subordinate clauses blends the past and present, pressing them against one another as if creating a photo album for the reader. The reader’s sense of the characters is deepened not from an articulation of one photograph but by Washington adding more images to the collection ... Yet there are moments when the author’s hand weighs too heavily on a character’s diction and confuses, rather than clarifies, that character’s world ... And Mike and Benson often narrate with indifference ... But more often, Washington’s details contain a pathos that weeps below the lacerating irony ... it is there that life rests: in the slow gathering of moments, some seemingly arbitrary, all clamoring for attention. The ambling dual narrative, looping between past and present, draws tragicomic power from blunt coincidence ... the more mature messiness of Memorial lies partly in Washington’s calculated uncertainty over what resolution ought to look like in a gay love story, as Benson and Mike search for answers to questions they don’t quite know how to ask.

Memorial is a powerful portrait of the challenges, both internal and external, that so often come with loving another human being. With unique and beautiful prose, it weaves together a fascinating story of cultures, families, and lovers both clashing and coming together in the beautiful mess that is loving and living ... While the characters feel lost and out of control, the story, itself, never does. Washington has a strong and purposeful command over every moment. With its soft prose and alternating perspectives, Memorial feels like a dance, effortlessly gliding between the characters’ stories as they discover who they are supposed to be.

The situational spark that begins the novel is contrived...yet the artifice soon becomes illuminating. Washington finds eloquence in colloquialism; he creates, through a variety of voices, the poetics of conversation. Little turns of phrase...create a storytelling centered within characters’ consciousness. One doesn’t feel that this is writerly paint applied to the text but is instead the very germ of how the characters experience the world ... by alternating between the present and intrusions of memory, the author creates states of mind in Mike and Benson that become the novel’s central force ... Washington’s clever use of subordinate clauses blends the past and present, pressing them against one another as if creating a photo album for the reader. The reader’s sense of the characters is deepened not from an articulation of one photograph but by Washington adding more images to the collection ... Yet there are moments when the author’s hand weighs too heavily on a character’s diction and confuses, rather than clarifies, that character’s world ... And Mike and Benson often narrate with indifference ... But more often, Washington’s details contain a pathos that weeps below the lacerating irony ... it is there that life rests: in the slow gathering of moments, some seemingly arbitrary, all clamoring for attention.

This is a love story, writ large, that sings in small moments ... Forced apart, and deeper into the families they’d all but separated from, or maybe never knew to begin with, they grow in wholly unanticipated ways. As in his short story collection, Lot (2019), Washington writes about race, class, family, love, and the idea of home with evocative nuance and phenomenal dialogue.

Tender, funny, and heartbreaking, this tale of family, food...and growing apart feels intimate and expansive at the same time ... [Washington] comfortably expands his range into the setting of Osaka, applying nuance in equal measure to his characters and the places they’re tied to.

...vividly written ... Washington’s novel is richly layered and thrives in the quiet moments between lovers and family members ... 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 ... A subtle and moving exploration of love, family, race, and the long, frustrating search for home.