"Bryan Washington's characters reveal themselves through what they don't, won't, or can't say as much as the utterances they give voice to. Though he constructs his stories from the first-person perspective, his protagonists never exist in heroic isolation. Each is shaped - in ways small and large, superficial and profound, knowingly and unknowingly - by the people they interact with and the cultures they inhabit."
"Most of Washington's stories are set in Houston, where he grew up, or Japan, where he currently lives. Occasionally, as in Palaver, the author's third novel, the two collide. A finalist for the 2025 National Book Award, Palaver tells the story of an unnamed son who moved from Texas to Tokyo to escape his homophobic brother, only to receive a surprise visit from his unnamed mother more than a decade later."
"Unlike those works, as a review from the Washington Post points out, the novel errs on the side of hope. It "deconstructs the myriad ways we intentionally or unintentionally tear people apart, but it also eloquently illuminates the tiny steps we can take to lift each other up and make ourselves whole again." For Washington, writing is not simply a creative endeavor. It's a way to work through questions that can't be answered easily."
Characters reveal themselves through what they don't, won't, or can't say as much as through their spoken words. Stories are often set in Houston or Japan, and sometimes both collide, as in Palaver, a novel about an unnamed son who moved from Texas to Tokyo to escape a homophobic brother and later received a surprise visit from his unnamed mother. Palaver foregrounds estrangement, loneliness, forgiveness, and an orientation toward hope, deconstructing how people are torn apart while illuminating tiny steps toward repair. The novel probes how relocation, language learning, and small interactions reshape self-perception and relationships.
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