I think, he said, being a decent person, anywhere in the world, is a challenging thing. There will always be reasons not to. It’ll always be an active decision.
The mother left Jamaica with her best friend when she was very young, heading to Toronto but eventually settling in Texas where she raised her two boys. The son left to escape the gulf between him and his homophobic brother, and the apparent opprobrium of his mother who, he’s convinced, favours Chris over him. Diffident and self-contained, it took him some time to settle but he has a family now, a close and chosen family very different from the one he left in Texas. The mother tries to overcome the son’s taciturn hostility, wandering his neighbourhood, getting lost, finding herself on nodding terms with the local traders. When the son takes her first to the deer park at Nara, then to Kyoto, something gives, and an understanding begins to form between them. By the time the mother leaves, they’ve come to more than a rapprochement: the mother grasping that Tokyo not Texas is home for the son, that the family he’s chosen anchors him there.
Retracing their steps, it felt like they’d come to the end of something – or the beginning of something, or somewhere in between. If they’d tried putting words to it, they both would have failed. But knowing that they’d felt it was enough.
Switching between the mother and the son, Washington intersperses memories and flashbacks unfolding their backstories and how they’ve come to this rupture in their relationship. The novel’s central theme explores what makes both a home and family. Do blood ties trump friends and lovers who are loving, loyal and accepting? The son struggles with the violence dished out to him by his mother when he was a boy and her apparent inability to accept his sexuality. The mother remembers her brother and the beatings he took for his way of life in her native Jamaica. All the other characters are named except for these two which, for me, gives the novel more emotional distance than I’ve come to expect from Washington, although it does echo the chasm between them. This one was a slower burn for me than his previous books but, as ever, it left me impressed by its empathy and nuance. Although I was initially puzzled by that title, which seemed peculiarly British to me although its roots are Portuguese apparently, once looked up it made absolute sense. He’s a man who chooses his words carefully.
Atlantic Books: London 9781805463962 336 pages Paperback (Read via NetGalley)
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This sounds excellent, it’s definitely going on the list. When I saw your post I was struck by the title too – it seems so English! I’m intrigued by the choice now.
I was surprised to find it was Portuguese! He’s a fine writer. I’ve been impressed by everything I’ve read by him.
Washington often seems to approach the same ideas and concerns (mother-son relationships, Japan, queer identity-forming and community, familial homophobia) but always so beautifully written; I loved Lot and Memorial, and plan to track down Family Meal plus this!
He does – I suspect there’s much in his life that influences his fiction. He lives in both Houston and Japan apparently. Food’s also a theme. He writes about it in a way that suggests he’s an excellent cook!
Totally agree – the food and cookery descriptions in Memorial were mouth-watering and clearly came from life!
I’ve just ordered a copy – it’ll be my first of his. Looking forward to it.
I hope you enjoy it. I’m a big fan as you can probably tell.
Excellent review. “…what makes both a home and family. Do blood ties trump friends and lovers who are loving, loyal and accepting?” That’s always such a good starting point for a story. This one sounds very good.
Thank you. It’s an interesting theme, isn’t it. I’ll be posting a review of another novel which explores it in a couple of weeks.
I’ll watch for it.
Curious, that decision to leave only those two characters unnamed (or, at least, readers don’t know their names…maybe BW does though).
Given the themes of his previous books, I have wondered how much of his own parental relationship there is in it.