Magic Classical Book Club: "Palaver" by Bryan Washington

Today’s guest on the Magic Classical Book Club is Bryan Washington who will be talking about his new novel: 'Palaver'

In Tokyo, the son works as an English tutor, drinking his nights away with friends at a gay bar. He’s entangled with a married man, too. But while he has built a chosen family in Japan, he is estranged from his family in America, particularly his mother, whose preference for the son’s troubled homophobic brother pushed him to leave home. Then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, ten years since they’ve last seen each other, the mother arrives uninvited on his doorstep.

Separated only by the son’s cat, the two of them clash. The mother, wrestling with memories of her youth in Jamaica and her own complicated brother, works to atone for her missteps. The son initially struggles to forgive, but as they share meals, conversations and an eventful trip to one of the oldest cities in Japan, both mother and son start to reckon with the meaning of ‘home’ – and whether, perhaps, they can find it in each other.

Tim firstly asked what readers can expect from the book:

"I think for me, I am always interested in the ways that relationships take hold and the ways in which family structures take hold. So the short log line, I suppose, is a mother and son spend time together in Japan over the course of a couple of weeks.

The larger idea is this question of how the relationships that we have change if our senses of self. Change our sense of who we are, who we were, and who we would like to be, in what ways do people shift to meet us, where we would like to meet? What ways will they not or cannot, shift? And what do we do with that once we realize what can and can't be done inside of a relationship, whether it's, an intimate relationship, whether it's a platonic relationship.

Tim then asked about the importance of Tokyo and whether it would have been a different book if not set in Tokyo

"No, I think it's a fair assumption. I think that, it's something that felt really important to me.

So there, there's photography that's included in the novel, like, the images of Shin-Okubo, of Ni-chome, of Nara and to some extent of Kyoto. the literal proximity of people in these spaces, just the closeness of which they are walking down the road, having a conversation or in the midst of an argument in a bar, has a significant impact I think on the ways that relationships are formed and changed.

I've written previous works that were set either entirely or partially in the US and those are also informed by the literal architecture of a narrative. I've found that I remain interested in the ways the spaces. That we find ourselves in the homes, that we find ourselves in the cities, that we find ourselves in, create ceilings and walls for who we ultimately can present as, and how we can present and how that impacts who we can become and who spends time with us, who we allow to spend time with us."

Tim then asked about Bryan’s photography and why he did all of it:

"Shinjuku, Ni-chome and Shin-Okubo are very specific in particular neighbourhoods and they don't quite exist in the same cultural lexicon that a New York or a London or a Rome might, which is to say, like a reader can just sort of pick it up and for good or for ill, have a sense of what they are maybe looking at or have a sense of where people are, so to speak. So having tangible images that a reader can turn to and say, okay, this is what this bar looks like. This is what the street looks like. This is what this expanse or this skyline looks like.

But also I am someone who is very interested in and with a text regards whether it's a short story or a novel, the way that space works on the page, sure what is being said and what is being written like on the page, but also like how it is being presented, whether that's the white space, whether that's images, whether that's just periods of blank space in terms of narrative.

So really I think trying to have as controlled of a reading experience as possible is something that was important to me for this particular book and remains important to me. And also shifting that from project to project how hands on I am as a storyteller with that."

Tim finally asked Bryan for his favourite piece of classical music and why her chose it:

"So the record is Nala Sinephro’s Space 1. It's from her record Space 1.8, which was released in 2021. What I really, you know, admire about Sinephro’s music is the way in which she creates space in music.

It is a sort of like ambient space in of itself, but it is very particular, her utilization of keyboards, her utilization of keys or utilisation of guitar or utilisation of like woodwinds, they can feel just sort of disparate, I suppose, if you were to write it on paper, like what all she's accomplishing over the course of a track or even this particular track, but as a whole, like you're very much in the moment I think listening to her music and maybe what I'm getting at is like there reaches a point like in this particular record and her work more generally where trust is established. You just sort of like trust where she's going to lead you. And I think that's like a rare thing and not like a super common thing to accomplish. So it’s a record that I quite like."

If you want to listen back to Tim's interview with Bryan Washington, click here to see all of Tim's past shows.