Paul Bailey
A Visit from Mother
A couple of years ago, I came across a short story by the then-unknown young writer Bryan Washington in the New Yorker that captivated me instantly. It seemed to get better with each rereading. It’s called ‘Waugh’ and forms part of Washington’s debut collection, Lot, which was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. The interconnected stories in Lot are set in and around Houston, Texas, in what might be accounted its rougher districts, where life is often a matter of mere survival. The Texans here are for the most part of black and Latino origin, speaking the vivid, immediate language of the streets.
In his impressive first novel, Memorial, Washington has widened his horizons geographically. The book has two first-person narrators: Benson, a young black man who works in a children’s day-care centre in Houston, and Mike, a Japanese-American
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'The trouble seems to be that we are not asked to read this author, reading being a thing of the past. We are asked to decode him.'
From the archive, Derek Mahon peruses the early short fiction of Thomas Pynchon.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/rock-n-roll-is-here-to-stay
'There are at least two dozen members of the House of Commons today whose names I cannot read without laughing because I know what poseurs and place-seekers they are.'
From the archive, Christopher Hitchens on the Oxford Union.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/mother-of-unions
Chuffed to be on the Curiosity Pill 2020 round-up for my @Lit_Review piece on swimming, which I cannot wait to get back to after 10+ months away https://literaryreview.co.uk/different-strokes https://twitter.com/RNGCrit/status/1351922254687383553