Memorial by Bryan Washington
A funny, heartbreaking, off-beat and completely endearing novel from Bryan Washington, author of the celebrated short story collection Lot. In this, his debut novel, Washington creates a multi-perspective portrait of two gay men of colour - one Black, the other Japanese - as they reasses their relationship to each other and with their families. Borrowing from the blurb, it’s about “family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-own vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love”. And it’s completely beautiful!
One Day I’ll Remember This by Helen Garner
Following on from 2019’s Yellow Notebook, these are Helen Garner’s diaries from 1987-1995 during which time she wrote The First Stone and had that affair. A review in The Age suggested that reading Helen Garner’s work leaves you with the impression that you have not so much been looking at Garner’s life as at life itself. Indeed, just like her fiction, her diaries seem to illuminate complicated and universal truths. One Day I'll Remember This will appeal not only to Garner fans but to anyone who wants a profound insight into the mind of a true artist. Now we must wait for the next instalment!
Life After Truth Ceridwen Dovey
We love a good campus novel here at WellRead and Ceridwen Dovey’s contribution to the genre does not disappoint. Taking place at the fifteen-year reunion of a group of Harvard graduates, the novel is told in chapters that examine each of the five main characters and their various middle-age grievances: marriage and children; success and unrealised aspirations; unspoken love; and the dread that comes from living in a depressing political climate. If that last bit sounds a little like art imitating life, that’s because it is. The story also doubles as a murder mystery when the most infamous member of the class, Frederick – senior advisor and son of the recently elected and loathed US president – turns up dead. A provocative and intelligent literary page-turner.
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