Thank you @atlanticbooks for the surprise gift of Bryan Washington’s debut short story collection, Lot! I do love a short story collection, and actually I love them even more when there’s a common theme or even recurring character running through them - so Lot was a great read for me!
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I had planned to dip in and out of this one for #storyseptember but then I saw @podsticles recommend reading it all in one go, and I’m glad I acted on that advice! It made it much easier to keep in mind which characters featured in which story, as sometimes the narrative voices weren’t all that distinctive - not a huge problem as most of the stories are told from the POV of one boy, the son of a black mother and Latino father.
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I absolutely loved what Darryl @dsweet_library said in his review about Houston being a character in its own right. Its oppressive atmosphere is a constant throughout these stories, and while the focus is on usually on the city’s inhabitants and their various lives, its presence is impossible to ignore.
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Some of my favourites from the collection were Waugh, Elgin, Alief and Bayou, but most of them had merit of their own. If you want to read a collection exploring queerness, the meaning of home, family, community, masculinity, race, class and a whole load of other topics I could mention, then Lot is the one for you!