´But I guess that´s the thing: we take our memories wherever we go, and what´s left are the ones that stick around, and that´s how we make a life´.
Good, warmhearthed, empathic people are underrated in the contemporary literature.
Memorial by Bryan Washington is debut novel whose perceptive writing is like no other books I´ve read before.
Benson, Black and Mike, Japanese, are a couple living in a gentrified neighbourhood in Houston, Texas. Their relationship has ups but many downs, both carrying the weight of complex family dynamics which includes the acceptance of their coming out and after all, identity. As Mike is unexpectedly leaving to Japan to assist his dying father, Eiju, his mother, will come to the US and will remain meanwhile in their flat. Her limited English knowledge is compensated by the food she loves to cook for Benson.
Both the writing and storytelling style are simple, without adornments but flowing in a way which is unique. The choice of words on one side and the simplicity and clarity of the story are contributing in making up an account which resonates with the layer of humanity in the reader.
The impulse of helping and being empathic towards each other are coming up naturally, in the most possible human way. It´s not negotiable and therefore very beautiful. There may not be high stakes, passion and take-it-or-leave-it kind of approaches. In real life we rarely have this luxury, as most of us we are floating in between words, stranded between the possible ´no´ and impossible ´yes´.
I don´t remember when I´ve been so literarily pleasantly enchanted by a book but now I have a bookish memory to carry with me on the mind maze of my libraries.
Rating: 4.5 stars
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