Bryan Washington has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, Tin House, One Story, Bon Appétit, MUNCHIES, American Short Fiction, GQ, FADER, The Awl, and Catapult. He lives in Houston.
Some Strange Music Draws Me in (2024) Griffin Hansbury "Some Strange Music Draws Me In is luminous, propulsive, tender... Griffin Hansbury's prose is both scathing and soulful, delivered with care and grace and aplomb. This novel's warmth is palpable, and Hansbury has crafted a truly rare thing-a gift and a guide."
Great Expectations (2024) Vinson Cunningham "Vinson Cunningham's Great Expectations is epic, intimate, and brimming with brilliance. Cunningham's prose both soothes and scalds; he crafts a bildungsroman, a tragicomedy, and the panorama of an entire nation, juggling humor and sensitivity and honesty with ease. Great Expectations is a phenomenal, transfixing work, and Cunningham is a singular, dazzling writer."
Organ Meats (2023) K-Ming Chang "Chang is singular amongst us all. . . . [She] not only accomplishes narrative reinvention in her writing--she builds upon what feels achievable on the page. Chang shows us different ways of being."
Bellies (2023) Nicola Dinan "With Bellies, Nicola Dinan has written an intimate odyssey - full of warmth and humor, punctuated with prose that's thrilling and tender and elegant and pungent. Dinan weaves an irresistibly queer love story within a scrupulously architectured world, offering a story about connection, loneliness, identity, and the many different forms that family can take. Thoughtful, seductive, and entirely engrossing - Bellies is already a classic."
Homebodies (2023) Tembe Denton-Hurst "Homebodies is a modern marvel--Tembe Denton-Hurst's prose is both intimate and hysterical, inflammatory and elegiac. You'll root for Mickey as she takes on the world, questioning and searching its contours, weaving a story we can't help but find our own worlds inside of. Denton-Hurst has written a warm, brilliant novel that's stunning and poignant; Homebodies is wonderfully witty and full of empathy and entirely original."
Small Joys (2023) Elvin James Mensah "Breathtaking and heartrending, by turns hilarious and devastating and surprising and wild . . . Mensah's prose makes the intangible deft and tremendous--from the balm of friendship to the beauty of queerness to the all-encompassing elixir of community. Tender, thrilling, and honest, Small Joys is a beam of light."
Sea Change (2023) Gina Chung "Gina Chung's Sea Change is both elegant and jagged, sharp and lush. It's so utterly original, with Chung's rich and rewarding prose guiding and charting new territory in love and grief and growth. This novel about settling into yourself, changing alongside your family, eclipsing expectations, and searching for hope in infinitude is humorous and ruminative, transcending genres entirely. Chung's writing is masterful, and Sea Change is glorious."
Nuclear Family (2022) Joseph Han "Nuclear Family is a world unto itself: Joseph Han's novel is heartfelt and propulsive, immersing readers in a narrative whose questions of family, borders, queerness, and forgiveness constantly surprises and astounds. Han's prose is remarkable--both deadpan and compassionate--juggling the stories that we're told with the ones we seek to tell ourselves. Nuclear Family is a singular work, and Han's writing is truly special."
Monster in the Middle (2021) Tiphanie Yanique "Monster in the Middle is as boundless as it is affecting. Yanique's prose leaps with possibility, as her characters live and laugh and fight and love. Yanique captures romance from its peaks to its craters, deftly weaving whole worlds from everything in between."
Afterparties (2021) Anthony Veasna So "The sheer richness and energy of So’s narratives can’t be overstated—his characters are full of love, and full of longing, and full of laughter, and full of the possibilities that life offers them and also the ones it hides. It’s rare and magical and wild to find queer life, as it's actually lived, on the page—or on any pages—with all its multiplicities and creases and paradoxes and curves, and yet So lays it out for us, sparing nothing and giving everything. I was in awe through the entire collection—and you will be, too. Afterparties is an actual marvel."
The Atmospherians (2021) Alex McElroy "The Atmospherians is a marvel, a wonder, a gift. McElroy's characters glide across the page, in and out of love, and we see ourselves in their conflicts, their crucibles, and what they hold dear. Simply put, McElroy dazzles. This novel is dazzling."
Nights When Nothing Happened (2020) Simon Han "Absolutely luminous. Han weaves the transience of suburbia between the highs and lows of a family saga, illustrating what a parent owes a child, what a child owes their parents, and what simply cannot be repaid. His novel shocks, awes, and delights."
Pizza Girl (2020) Jean Kyoung Frazier "Pizza Girl is luminous, brooding, and, frankly, awe-inspiring. It's a joy to spend time in Frazier's world, an experience that only illuminates our own. The novel that teaches you something about yourself is a rare thing, and Frazier has given us a gift."
New Waves (2020) Kevin Nguyen "New Waves is a delight and a gamble and a treasure and a miracle. Nguyen's novel broke my heart. It made me laugh harder than any book reasonably should. It's everything I could possibly want in a story--but it's also that rarest, most unachievable of things: New Waves is truly something new."
More recommendations
Anthologies containing stories by Bryan Washington
