Memorial - A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

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 w hy 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.

Leseprobe:

1.

Mike s taking off for Osaka, but his mother s flying into Houston.

Just for a few weeks, he says.

Or maybe a couple of months, he says. But I need to go.

The first thing I think is: fuck.

The second s that we don t have the money for this.

Then, it occurs to me that we don t have any savings at all. But Mike s always been good about finances, always cool about separating his checks. It s something I d always taken for granted about him.

Now, he s saying that he wants to find his father. The man s gotten sick. Mike wants to catch him before he goes. And I m on the sofa, half-listening, half charging my phone.

You haven t seen your mom in years, I say. She s coming for you. I ve never met her.

I say, You don t even fucking like your dad.

True, says Mike. But I already bought the ticket.

And M a will be here when I m back, says Mike. You re great company. She ll live.

He s cracking eggs by the stove, slipping yolks into a pair of pans. After they ve settled, he salts them, drizzling mayonnaise with a few sprigs of oregano. Mike used to have this thing about sriracha, he d pull a hernia whenever I reached for it, but now he squeezes a faded bottle over my omelette, rubbing it in with the spatula.

I don t ask where he ll stay in Japan. I don t ask who he s staying with. I don t ask where his mother will sleep here, in our one bedroom apartment, or exactly what that arrangement will look like. The thing about a moving train is that, sometimes, you can catch it. Some of the kids I work with, that s how their families make it into this country. If you fall, you re dead. If you re too slow, you re dead. But if you get a running start, it s never entirely gone.

So I don t flip the coffee table. Or one of our chairs. I don t key his car or ram it straight through the living room. After the black eye, we stopped putting our hands on each other -- we d both figured, silently, it was the least we could do.

Today, what I do is smile.

I thank Mike for letting me know.

I ask him when he s leaving, and I know that s my mistake. I m already reaching to toss my charger before he says it, tomorrow.

_

We ve been fine. Thank you for asking.

_