Lot

A lovely, insightful, and sensitive novel. I grew up in Houston and love local geography so all of Washington's hyper-local prose speaks to me. I also appreciate the gay experience he writes about. My own upbringing was significantly whiter and more privileged than Lot's characters, I can't relate directly, but that just makes it all the more interesting for me to read.

At its best Washington's prose has a meaningful lyricism to it. He has a slightly askew sense of associations and moods, when he writes about "the leaves plaguing Montrose" or "he felt like a bag of Tic Tacs" I can relate even if I couldn't tell you exactly what the similes mean. There's also a sort of rhythm and mood to the feelings he expresses that reminds me very much of Ocean Vuong.

I had a hard time reading this book coherently. It's a set of short stories, somewhat interwoven with someone being a character in one story and then the narrator in the next. But I never quite followed the literal through-line. Plenty of overlapping mood and scene and situation though. I feel like I'd benefit from reading this book a second time much more closely and critically, dissecting it as one would for an English class. OTOH it's far too lovely a novel to cut apart that way, I'm happy enjoying it as-is.

The strongest story for me was Waugh. A heart-breaking narrative and the protagonist Poke was easier for me to empathize with than some others.

(One nitpick: some of the geography doesn't quite make sense. Like there's no I-90 in Houston, is there? And you think you can identify the exact blocks in Waugh only the details don't quite make sense. None of this matters to the mood or meaning, it's just me being pedantic. I want to put the places on a map! It's not that kind of book.)