Bryan Washington is a National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. He received the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award for his first book, Lot, which was also a finalist for the NBCC s John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, BuzzFeed, Bon Appétit, and GQ, among other publications. He lives in Houston.

THE BOOK OF THE FALL: Memorial landed with a huge splash: GMA book club pick, Indie Next #1, national bestseller, rave reviews, a bidding war for TV rights, excerpts in The New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly, a New York Times profile, blurbs from everyone from Jackie Woodson to Ocean Vuong to Jasmine Guillory to Kiley Reid. Memorial was on countless best of the year lists, and was a NYT Notable book and a finalist for the NBCC Fiction Prize.ASCENDANT LITERARY STAR: Lot launched Bryan in a big way and his profile has continued to rise. He's a National Book Award 5 Under 35 recipient; he won the Young Lions Fiction Award, the Ernest J. Gaines Award and was a finalist for the PEN Bingham Award, the NBCC John Leonard Prize, and the Aspen Literary Prize. Lot was named one of Barack Obama's favorite books of the year.INCREDIBLY APPEALING READ: This book is an utter delight. It's not a typical post-story collection debut literary door-stopper: it's a riot to read, tackling big issues but with humor and indelible characters and an electric energy. It's the novel that many people have told me broke their lockdown reading rut.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, O, the Oprah Magazine, Esquire, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Refinery29, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, and Lit Hub

A masterpiece.   NPR

No other novel this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America. The Washington Post

Wryly funny, gently devastating. Entertainment Weekly

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.
 
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.