Saturday, January 11, 2020

Book Review: Lot: Stories (Houston, ethics, poverty) (OT)


Lot: Stories, by Bryan Washington (Riverhead Books, 2019, 222 pages, $25)


If a book can be melodic, this is it. “. . . talking, words bursting our of my nose, my ears, . . . . “

What is a Family?

A story of stories of Houston, on first names with streets* and neighborhoods but now you see them in a different light from different eyes (hookers, druggies, dealers, workers).

On first names with a hurricane: before Harvey, after Rita. If you can afford to come back, if you can afford to come back AND to rebuild. If not, . . . .”Rumors glide through the complex like vines.” (p. 14)

A Different Houston

Author Bryan Washington shows us a different Houston, a different life, peopled with disintegration and a different set of ethics. Is it real? Just as one seems to be getting his life together, he is shot down (or dies in a car accident) but there are those who get out and get a PhD – how, is anyone’s guess: the survival of the fittest. For the few, the very few.

“Gloria blew through our lives on a Wednesday, and our mother told us to treat her like pottery, to not ask questions, to creep around the house like ants before their queen. Our mother, who returned grape bunches over single sourings; who’d shipped my sister, Nikki, to Tech with a knife in her pillowcase; who’d slipped into this country, this home, her life, on the whim of a fortune-teller, . . . . “ (p. 43)

Enigma

Lot is an enigma, a puzzle that is not too hard to figure out but you will still be proud of yourself that you can figure it out. Thanks for chapter titles rather than chapter numbers (titles that can mostly be understood, being street names in Houston). You can read each chapter as a stand-alone or in series (better in series, but possible the other way around). Some chapters introduce a new character (Gloria) who is never mentioned again but the chapter in question is all about them and how that person fits into the family and what that person does to advance the story, the break-up.

Lot is an enigma that challenges you to place each chapter in the time dimension, e.g., what has transpired since the previous chapter ended is slowly made apparent and the intervening time can be very long in time and space.

Lot is an enigma in that author Bryan Washington writes a lot of dialogue but without quotation marks – you have to remember who is speaking.

When Does a Family Die?

One by one, they leave. . . .
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*”They touched eyes taking out the trash on MLK Boulevard.” (p. 7)

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