#11 – Memorial by Bryan Washington (2020) – Washington’s first full-length novel, was an interesting read. There were times throughout the book where I grew impatient and wasn’t sure I was enjoying it, but by the third and last section, it all came together for me, and I felt it was ultimately a successful and moving story. Benson is a black man, raised in a middle class, fractured family, who is involved in a relationship with Mike, a Japanese man whose parents are also divorced and carrying a lot of baggage. When Mike learns that his father is struggling in the last phases of terminal cancer, he invites his mother to come visit them in Houston, and the day she arrives, he leaves to return to Osaka to see his father from whom he has been estranged from for years. While Ben and Mitsuko begin an awkward dance getting to know one another under less than ideal circumstances in Houston, Mike is dealing with a similarly awkward reunion with his father. All of this while Ben and Mike’s relationship appears to be unraveling.
Memorial explores difficult relationships all around, treating the gay relationship with the same complexity as both of their parents. Culture, race, and struggling with homosexuality are all themes the various characters endure, and while there is no easy resolution there is a sense of relief and things long unspoken are revealed and brought to the surface. A powerful first novel.
#10 – Sex with Strangers by Michael Lowenthal (2021) – To be honest, a short story collection with the title, Sex with Strangers, made me a little wary. I wasn’t really in the mood for a series of stories focusing on tawdry hook-ups, whether they might be sexy, or funny, or dark. Thankfully, and I should have known better, Michael Lowenthal uses sex… or perhaps more accurately, desire, as the starting point, or perhaps, the driving force behind the motivations or actions of the characters in this handful of stories, some written specifically for this collection, others collected from his career. In fact, there’s actually very little explicit sex in the book at all.
The characters in Sex with Strangers span the Kinsey scale, gay to straight, and include men and women. The stories that I enjoyed the most, in fact, tended to be the ones about heterosexual relationships, or at least ones where the protagonists were straight. Occasionally the stories about two men ventured into territory I often roll my eyes in both fiction, and life, but I suppose that speaks more about me, than it does the writing style, because Michael is a strong writer. He handles language very confidently, and his prose is eminently readable. There’s a strength behind the words and the structure, and not in a macho, male way, but more the strength of a tree, knowing when to bend.
Overall, I ended up enjoying Sex with Strangers much more than I expected, which makes me very happy. I’ve enjoyed Michael’s work throughout the years, and as I said, reading about sex, or more broadly, relationships, is always good self-therapy as well.