Win a copy of a New York Times Notable Book of The Year, Memorial by Bryan Washington today! This is a beautiful and poignant novel you’re going to enjoy. 5 winners will be selected!
For all you readers! We’ve partnered with Riverhead Books to give away Bryan Washington’s debut novel Memorial to 5 lucky JOC winners this holiday. The highly anticipated follow-up to Washington’s critically acclaimed book of short stories Lot, Memorial follows two men living in Houston — Mike is a Japanese-American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson’s a Black daycare teacher, and they aren’t sure if their relationship has run its course.
While the novel is neither a cookbook nor even a food book, cooking is a language of love throughout the story — love for a parent, love from a parent, love of a partner, and even lack of love.
Memorial is an exciting read, and we know you’re going to enjoy it. Enter to win a copy now!
About Memorial by Bryan Washington
Memorial is a funny and profound story about big first loves, family in all its forms, becoming who you’re supposed to be, the limits of love, and how sharing food can say so much without us saying anything at all.
The novel is packed with different types of dishes and cuisines, and each serves as vital motifs for relationships, people, and places. Whether it be discarded crinkled hamburger wrappers; sultry Sriracha sprinkled omelettes; uncomfortable Tex-Mex restaurants or elaborate feasts of okonomiyaki, kitsune udon, curry, rice and more; the story is driven by meals and cooking in both Houston and Osaka.
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, TIME, O, the Oprah Magazine, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, and Real Simple. “A masterpiece.” —NPR
“No other novel this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America.” —The Washington Post
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.
About Bryan Washington
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. His first book, the story collection Lot, was a finalist for the NBCC’s John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.
Enter to Win A Copy of Memorial by Bryan Washington
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The winners are…
- Alan K Murakami
- Vanessa Allison
- Jolene Chang
- SR
- Michelle Xie
Congratulations! We will contact you shortly.
“Can you cook a chicken? she says.
You mean boil it, I say.
I meant what I said.
Like, frying wings?
Absolutely not, Mitsuko says. Come here.”
“So I text: where can you get natto here
y?
Your mom says she wants to make some.
And Mike’s response is immediate, possibly the fastest he’s ever replied to me: tf?”
“Whole swaths of Houston look like chunks of other countries. There are potholes beside gourmet bakeries beside taquerías beside noodle bars, copied and pasted onto a tinted landscape.”
“For lunch, we drifted up the pier for fish tacos. The woman who sold them was missing an ear. They were delicious, and we ordered four more, and then we watched some boys do somersaults in the sand by the dock.”
“she cooks what she tells me is his favorite: potato korokke, crowded beside onions and gravy, surrounded by sliced tomatoes and lettuce. She mashes the potatoes and pork with her fingers, drizzling the mixture with salt and pepper, molding tiny patties and flipping them in flour and egg yolks and panko. From the counter, I watch them crisp, and Mitsuko watches me watch them.”
“Mike knows a little bit of Spanish, I finally say.
That’s nice, Mitsuko says.
He has to. For his job.
Also, I say, he’s really into food.”
“When Mitsuko cracks an egg into the pot and tastes a spoonful, she actually doesn’t grimace.
It’s edible, she says.”
“One afternoon, I watch Mitsuko crack an egg in her palm. I think it’s a fluke, but then she does it again.”
“Check the rice, Mitsuko says.
I figure she’s just cutting me off, but then I look at the stove and it’s bubbling.”
“Another thing: on Sunday mornings, Mike drove us from market to market, all over the Northside. He juggled onions and guanabana and garlic and pineapples. He haggled with venders in his shitty Spanish, and in the evening he’d cook three versions of the same fucking meal. I’d take a bite of one, and then a bite of the second. Then Mike would motion me toward the third. I usually went with the second.”
“Will they have natto? she asks.
I say that the H Mart just might.
You know what natto is? Mitsuko asks, frowning.
Soybeans, I say, right? Mike uses it.
And for the first time in our acquaintance, Mitsuko looks confused.
Here in Houston, she says.
Yeah, I say.
And you eat natto, she says.
I do, I say.”
“That evening, Mitsuko’s cooking potatoes and okayu and a sliver of fish. She sets a bowl aside for me, with some scallions dashed over the porridge. Then she sips tea by the counter, and I drink water like a drowning man”
“A little later, I text Mike, thinking he’ll just be starting his day, after Mitsuko and I finish an elaborate collaboration: udon cooked in a hot pot, beside abura-age and kamaboko and spinach and two chicken legs.”
“seafood curry swimming with scallops and shrimp, just waiting for rice”
“The omelette was scrumptious, the type of factor Mike would prepare dinner, as a result of he did every part within the kitchen, and I believe that this might have been the issue to start with”