Memorial, the new novel by Bryan Washington, is at once fresh and new and daring, while also feeling wholly familiar. I know these characters, intimately, Benson and Mike.
They're the friends you love, the ones who piss you off because they can't always articulate what they want or what they're feeling; in that way, it's very much a book about we show love when we don't have the words.
Sometimes that's in a kitchen, preparing a meal for someone, and sometimes that means flying to Japan to care for your ailing father, which is where the book begins.Mike, a Japanese-American chef who works at a Mexican restaurant, flies across the globe to say goodbye to his estranged father.