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Lot: Stories Hardcover – March 19, 2019
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"Phenomenal" --Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
"Brilliant" --Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun
“A profound exploration of the true meaning of borders.” —The New York Times Book Review
NAMED ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2019 in the New York Times by Dwight Garner
A New York Times Notable Book of 2019
In the city of Houston - a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America - the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He's working at his family's restaurant, weathering his brother's blows, resenting his older sister's absence. And discovering he likes boys.
Around him, others live and thrive and die in Houston's myriad neighborhoods: a young woman whose affair detonates across an apartment complex, a ragtag baseball team, a group of young hustlers, hurricane survivors, a local drug dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, a reluctant chupacabra.
Bryan Washington's brilliant, viscerally drawn world vibrates with energy, wit, raw power, and the infinite longing of people searching for home. With soulful insight into what makes a community, a family, and a life, Lot explores trust and love in all its unsparing and unsteady forms.
- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRiverhead Books
- Publication dateMarch 19, 2019
- Dimensions5.25 x 0.99 x 8.27 inches
- ISBN-100525533672
- ISBN-13978-0525533672
- Lexile measureHL790L
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Washington’s subtle, dynamic and flexible stories play out across [Houston’s] sprawling and multiethnic neighborhoods… An alert and often comic observer of the world… Washington cracks open a vibrant, polyglot side of Houston about which few outsiders are aware... [T]here is a fair amount of joy in Washington’s stories… An underthrob of emotion beats inside them. He’s confident enough not to force the action. The stories feel loose, their cellular juices free to flow." —Dwight Garner, New York Times
“This is a story collection that feels like a novel—not because the characters return throughout the book, but because Washington’s astute world-building creates an ever widening scope of Houston that imprints itself on the mind and the psyche. He has such an incredible skill at texturizing people and their histories through each story that the two elements feel consequential to each other. It’s a treat and an inspiration to witness." —Ocean Vuong, GQ
“[S]tunning… Lot paints an unforgettable picture of Houston and the people who call it home.... It's hard to overstate what an accomplishment Lot is.... Washington does a brilliant job making the city come to life in all its imperfect glory. His book is an instant classic of Texas literature, but it's more than that — it's a stunning work of art from a young writer with immense talent and a rare sense of compassion, and one of the strongest literary debuts in several years.” —NPR
"[F]unny, sad, wise & very alive in the best way." —Curtis Sittenfeld (Twitter)
“Audacious... A profound exploration of the true meaning of borders, written very much for and about our current cultural moment….Washington is a one-man border-eradicating crew.... There’s a knowing grin of local familiarity here, yet Washington also manages to present this melancholy, jolly story in the voice of a collective 'we' that renders the collection universal.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, The New York Times Book Review
“This eagerly awaited short-story collection, excerpted in The New Yorker to much fanfare, depicts its author’s hometown of Houston with empathy, tragedy, and exceptional specificity.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Washington’s debut reads like a love letter to Houston.” —New York Times
“Lot is Bryan Washington's debut book, and like...where has he been my whole life?! This collection of stories—all of which take place in Houston—is absolutely gut-wrenching and powerful, and will immediately transport you out of whatever bubble you're living in.” —Cosmopolitan
“Bryan Washington makes his already much-lauded debut with Lot, a collection of extraordinary short stories set in and across the city of Houston that thrum with vitality and authenticity and are peopled with characters yearning for connection.” —Southern Living
"A dynamic portrait of Houston and the people who live there." —Time
"Lot spills over with life — funny, tender, and profane.... Washington takes characters often consigned to the literary margins and drags them to the center — not as exotic objects of curiosity but as whole human beings, messy and defiant and drawn in full, vibrant color." —Entertainment Weekly
"A technicolor portrait of the city, revealing both its seediness and its enchantment. Lot's great gift is bringing into the light those who live in the shadows." —O, the Oprah Magazine
"The kind of stories I am always longing to read. I love the urgency, honesty, and vitality of Washington’s voice. I love these characters for where they’re from, and where they’re going, what they know, and what they reveal about trouble and love."
—Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
"A brilliant display of raw talent, with gut-punching stories that deliver with a lasting force. This is the literature that I've been waiting for."
—Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun
“Lot will affect you the way that cherished and, sometimes, painful memories do, with a quality like haunting, a sense that the encounter you've had is undeniably real and will stay with you for a very long time. What a thrill to inhabit—to live in, to navigate—the stories and people that make up Bryan Washington’s powerful debut.”
—Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man
“What a book. This is a generous, powerful, deeply engrossing collection of stories that will crack open your heart then put it back together again. Lot is indelible, and Bryan Washington is an important new talent.”
—R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
"Lot is the confession of a neighborhood, channeled through a literary prodigy. Bryan Washington doesn't render a world, he actually captures one, grabs it out of reality and holds it up for you to see it sparkle. Unflinching, romantic while refusing to romanticize, this is the debut of a prodigious talent."
—Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day and Pym
"Bryan Washington's voice has risen blazingly from Houston and now commands us to pay attention. Lot is as raw, soulful and moving as a story collection can get. It’s my favorite fiction debut of the year."
—Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author ofThe Middlesteins and All Grown Up
"Bryan Washington gets Houston down on the page in a way I haven't seen before; the city, in his hands, is revealed in all its strange and righteous glory, a fresh sense of youth that's a pleasure to read. Bryan is a thrilling new voice in American fiction and one to watch."
—Amelia Gray, author of Isadora and Gutshot
"A sensitive portrait of life among Houston's struggling working class.... Washington writes with an assurance that signals the arrival of an important literary voice." —Kirkus
"Stellar... Washington is exact and empathetic, and the character that emerges is refreshingly unapologetic about his sexuality, even as it creates rifts in his family.... Washington is a dynamic writer with a sharp eye for character, voice, and setting. This is a remarkable collection from a writer to watch." —Publishers Weekly (STARRED review)
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1.
Roberto was brown and his people lived next door so of course I went over on weekends. They were full Mexican. That made us superior. My father found every opportu- nity to say it, but not to their faces. So Ma took it upon herself to visit most evenings. She still didn’t have many friends on the block—we were too dark for the blancos, too Latin for the blacks.
But Roberto’s mother dug the company. She invited us in. Her husband worked construction, pouring cement into Grand Parkway, and they didn’t have any papers so you know how that goes. No one was hiring. She wasn’t about to take chances. What she did with her days was look after Roberto.
They lived in this shotgun with swollen pipes. It was the house you shook your head at when you drove up the road. Ma brought over yucca and beans from the restau- rant, but then my father saw and asked her who the fuck had paid for it. Javi, Jan, and I watched our parents circle the kitchen, until our father grabbed a bowl of rice and threw it on the tile. He said this was what it felt like to watch your money walk. Maybe now Ma’d think before she shit on her familia. And of course it didn’t stop her—if anything, she went more often—but Ma started leaving the meals at home; instead, she brought me and some coffee and tinned crackers.
Roberto had this pug nose. He was pimply in all the wrong places. He wore his hair like the whiteboys, and when I asked why that was he called it one less thing to worry about. His fam couldn’t afford regular cuts, so whenever they came around the barber clipped off everything. I told him he looked like a rat, like one of the blanquitos biking all over town, and Roberto said that was cool but I was a fat black gorilla.
He was fifteen, a few years older than me. He told me about the bus he’d taken straight from Monterrey. His father’d left for Houston first, until he could send for the rest of them too, and when I asked Roberto about Mexico he said everything in Texas tasted like sand.
Roberto didn’t go to school. He spent all day mumbling English back to his mother’s busted TV. Since it was the year of my endless flu, and I didn’t exist to Javi anymore— he’d taken up with the local hoods by then—that meant I spent a fuckton of time next door. They had this table and these candles and a mattress in the living room; when Roberto’s father wasn’t out breaking his back, I usually found him snoring on it.
His mother was always exhausted. Always crying to Ma. Said it wasn’t that this country was rougher—everything was just so loose.
Ma told her to wait it out. That’s just what America did to you. They’d learn to adjust, she’d crack the code, but what she had to do was believe in it.
Meanwhile, Roberto and I walked to the corner of Lockwood, where East End collapses and the warehouses begin. We threw rocks at the cars on Woodvale. Tagged drunks on their porches by Sherman. We watched loose gangs of boys smoking kush on Congress, and I saw Javi among them, and he didn’t even blink at me. But that night he shook me awake on our bunk, mouthing off about how he’d kill me if I spoke up. He smelled burnt and sour, like a dead thing in the road. I thought about warning Roberto to keep quiet until I remembered he had no one to tell.
Once, I asked Roberto if he liked it in Texas. He looked at me forever. Called it another place with a name.
Could be worse, I said. You could be back home. Home’s wherever you are at the time, said Roberto. You’re just talking. That doesn’t even mean anything. It would, he said, if you knew you didn’t have one.
The first time we tugged each other his father was sleeping beside us. They’d cemented the 610 exit and he’d found himself out of work. It was silent except for the flies above us, and Ma on the porch with his mother, promising that they’d figure it out.
When Roberto finally gasped I covered his mouth with my free hand. We put our ears to the screen door, but nothing’d changed outside. Just our mothers sobbing, and the snores overlaying them, and the Chevys bumping cumbia in the lot across the way.
He’d gotten it all on his jeans, which cracked us both up—they were the one pair he had. He wasn’t getting another.
That night Ma told my father about their situation. She said we should help. We’d been fresh once, too. My father said of course we could spot them a loan, and then they could borrow some dishes from the cupboard. We’d lend them some chairs. The bedroom too. Jan laughed from her corner, and Ma said it wasn’t funny, we knew exactly what she meant—we were twisting her words.
Gradually, things began to evaporate from Roberto’s place. I know because I was there. I watched them walk through the door. His family still didn’t have cash for regu- lar meals, Roberto started skipping breakfast and lunch, and this is the part where I should say my family opened their pantry but we didn’t do any of that shit at all.
But it didn’t stop the two of us. We touched in the park on Rusk. By the dumpsters on Lamar. At the pharmacy on Woodleigh and the benches behind it. We tried his parents’ mattress, once, when his mother’d stepped out for a cry, and we’d only just finished zipping up when we heard her jiggling open the lock.
Eventually, I asked Roberto if maybe this was a bad thing, if maybe his folks were being punished for our sins, and he asked if I was a brujo or a seer or some other shit.
I said, Shut the fuck up.
But you’re sitting here talking about curses, said Roberto.
I don’t know, I said. Just something. It could be us.
Roberto said he didn’t know anything about that. He’d never been to church.
2.
When they finally disappeared it was overnight and without warning. I only knew it happened because Ma hadn’t slapped me awake.
I palmed open their door, and the mattress was on the floor, but their lamps and their table and the grocery bags were gone. They took the screws off the doorknobs. The lightbulbs too. All I found were some socks in a bathroom cabinet.
My father said we’d all paid witness to a parable: if you didn’t stay where you belonged, you got yourself evicted.
Ma sighed. Jan nodded. Javi cheesed from ear to ear. He’d just had his first knife fight, owned the scars on his elbows to prove it, and Roberto’s family could’ve moved to the moon for all he cared.
The morning before, Roberto’d shown me this crease on my palms. When you folded them a certain way, your hands looked like a star. Some lady on the bus from San Antonio had shown him how, and he’d called her loco then but now he was thinking he’d just missed the point.
His parents were out. We huddled in his closet. His shorts sat piled on mine, they were the only pair left in the house. He didn’t tell me he was disappearing. He just felt my chin. Rubbed my palms. Then he cupped his hands between us, asked if I’d found the milagro in mine.
I couldn’t see shit, just the outline of his shadow, but we squeezed our palms together and I called it amazing anyways.
Product details
- Publisher : Riverhead Books; Illustrated edition (March 19, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0525533672
- ISBN-13 : 978-0525533672
- Lexile measure : HL790L
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.99 x 8.27 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,006,908 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10,911 in Short Stories Anthologies
- #19,682 in Short Stories (Books)
- #24,466 in Black & African American Literature (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers enjoyed the stories and found them interesting. They enjoyed the book and found it compelling and entertaining. The writing was described as great, easy to read, and poetic. Readers appreciated the authenticity, genuineness, and honesty of the content. They also praised the author's craftsmanship and condition of the book.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers enjoy the back-and-forth between stories in this book. They find the stories interesting and well-written, with some of them connected and others not. The book offers a diverse perspective on social and psychological complexities, offering an intimate look at the lives of individuals in Houston. It shows the importance of family and acceptance for who you truly are.
"...These are easy reading re: vocabulary, but the social and psychological complexities are legion...." Read more
"I wanted to like this book. I am all for diverse perspectives in fiction, and we need more gay fiction in which the protagonists struggle to get by..." Read more
"...A beautiful collection of stories that I am sure to re-read. I can't wait to read what's yet to come from this young man." Read more
"...I'm so glad I read it. An excellent collection of short stories, some connected, others not. An intimate look at the lives of individuals in Houston...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book. They find it compelling, entertaining, and a good purchase. Some readers mention that some chapters are okay, but overall they appreciate the author's storytelling economy and how quickly the stories get into action.
"What a great craftsman is this writer! I love his economy, his way of getting into a story so breathtakingly fast...." Read more
"...The storyline of his novel sounds more varied and compelling." Read more
"...An intimate look at the lives of individuals in Houston. Great debut book." Read more
"The best book I read this year. An amazing read, and great representation of new, queer writers. Kudos!" Read more
Customers appreciate the book's writing style. They find it easy to read, with a poetic and humorous tone. The language is authentic, though some readers had difficulty understanding certain words. The dialogue is considered intelligent and the author is well-written.
"...These are easy reading re: vocabulary, but the social and psychological complexities are legion...." Read more
"The stories were repetitive. The language must be very authentic, but I could only guess the meaning many of the words...." Read more
"...Washington writes without pretense, without being self congratulatory or self deprecating...." Read more
"I read this book for a book club. Washington can write; no doubt about that. However, these series of stories don't go far enough...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's authenticity. They find it genuine, tender, and honest about the LGBTQ experience.
"...upon this collection of short stories right when I needed something authentic, genuine and tender...." Read more
"...But it is profoundly real and full of the same emotional realities of straight, white middle class folks —- “who am I, where do I belong, and what’s..." Read more
"This book was so beautiful. It broke my heart a few times. It is very real and honest about the queer experience...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's craftsmanship. They say it was well-written and arrived on time in good condition.
"What a great craftsman is this writer! I love his economy, his way of getting into a story so breathtakingly fast...." Read more
"Item came before the scheduled time and was in excellent condition" Read more
"Excellent work from product new writer...." Read more
Reviews with images
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Good read
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2021What a great craftsman is this writer! I love his economy, his way of getting into a story so breathtakingly fast. His dialogue is whip-smart but never beggars belief. And tremendously entertaining. His poor Latinx and black Houston residents are rarely themselves upbeat, though life forces many to be rock-hard realists. He wrote these stories, still in his 20s. His background? An interview revealed how staggeringly well-read he is, even of young contemporaries. These are easy reading re: vocabulary, but the social and psychological complexities are legion.
My favorite of these stories has to be "Waugh," because only after reading to the end did I realize that it was a kind of love story, one in which, I believe, that word was never uttered or that emotion even acknowledged. And a poignant if not tragic one, because the principals are two in an every-man-for-himself nest of sex hustlers, the main character, Poke, hadn't been drawn outside his own survivalist self-interest before, and it is only after he betrays his friend that he realizes his feelings.
Washington must be writing about lives he couldn't possibly have experienced first-hand, thus must have been a phenomenal listener and observer. I look forward to his equally celebrated novel, "Memorial," two chapters of which were printed as short stories in the New Yorker.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2021The stories were repetitive. The language must be very authentic, but I could only guess the meaning many of the words. The storyline of his novel sounds more varied and compelling.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2020I wanted to like this book. I am all for diverse perspectives in fiction, and we need more gay fiction in which the protagonists struggle to get by financially.
That being said, I found this book lacking. The characters were poorly fleshed out, and only rarely did the author get me to care what happened to any of them.
Also, Houston figures prominently enough to be a character in its own right, but the author never gave a sense of place. Endless lists of street names, neighborhood names, and route numbers mean nothing to out-of-towners, and apart from those, the author’s Houston could be Generic City, USA.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2019I feel fortunate to have stumbled upon this collection of short stories right when I needed something authentic, genuine and tender. Washington writes without pretense, without being self congratulatory or self deprecating. He doesn't want us feeling sorry for him or exoticing him, he doesn't want us asking, How were you able to love through all of that? He's just opening up a window into his world, as we pass by. We can steal a quick glance, or stop and stare. But either way, he won't be looking back at us.
A beautiful collection of stories that I am sure to re-read. I can't wait to read what's yet to come from this young man.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2023Item came before the scheduled time and was in excellent condition
- Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2019Anyone from the Houston area should take a read of this novel for it shows a part of Houston many do not know much about. Long live the East End!
- Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2019I will direct you to reviews on Goodreads regarding this book, because I'm not sure I have the correct words to adequately describe this book. I'm so glad I read it. An excellent collection of short stories, some connected, others not. An intimate look at the lives of individuals in Houston. Great debut book.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2021Good story about struggle
Top reviews from other countries
- KayReviewed in Germany on December 21, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars A new world
for this reader: Houston at the margins.
The linked stories are matter of fact, but captivating. The family at the core takes shape through their actions which center on a very precarious restaurant, of sorts. One of the children flees via education, one flees and dies via the military, the central one stays in the trade and stays as he finds a partner. They hold each other in place.
- RFReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling
A really interesting and compelling collection of interlinked stories. I was left thinking about them for a long time afterwards.
- DieterReviewed in France on September 1, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Strong voice, rich writing
To be honest, I bought this book merely because it won the Lambda Literary Award 2020 in the category Gay Fiction, and I simply wanted to find out what it was all about (i.e. why it had won the award). Curiosity killed the cat, I know, but I admit I felt inquisitive. I expected a novel, I discovered a collection of loosely connected short stories, the majority of which evolve around the central character of Nicolás. He is living in a poor part of Houston with his Ma, his brother Javi, his sister Jan, and his father. Nicolás grows up in precarious conditions; he’s forced to help his mother in the little family restaurant; his sister is often absent, trying to escape the dreary situation; his father has an affair with another woman and most of the time simply isn’t there either; his brother Javi is a drug dealer who thinks he can educate his little brother by beating him up. He does try to lift himself up by joining the Army, but soon dies in an accident. Nicolás discovers early on that he is gay, that he doesn’t want to become emotionally engaged because that would only lead to people leaving or bruising him some more; and that being poor and between two worlds—his Ma is black, his father Latino, so he is considered somewhat an outsider by both groups—is a heavy burden.
Interwoven with his stories, which are told in first person, are other side plots set in one of the countless other parts of the city (I had to check out Houston on Google Maps to get an overview of the nigh sprawling neighborhoods mentioned). Houston is one of the central elements that holds all these stories together; the other one is the raw language. This is no pink-tinted feel-good novel with romantic entanglements and happy endings. It’s a rough trip into places into which contemporary literature doesn’t venture that often: the very depths of the nefarious social conditions in which large parts of the US population live, unseen, unheard, uncared-for. It’s a necessary mirror for those who say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”, which is just another way to shun reality and shrug off any responsibility for the destitute.
Yes, in large parts, this is a bleak read. Swear words, drugs, violence, murders, betrayals, lost hopes abound. Dialogs are often bereft of meaningful exchanges; they are also devoid of quotation marks as if to signal the absence of a difference between inner and outer world. And yet, Bryan Washington has a way with words, he uses them powerfully, wielding them sometimes with sad poetry, sometimes like weapons, but always with a cutting edge, always very justly. What struck me most vividly was the underlying anger and, more strongly, the emotions beyond anger: sadness, and fatigue, and the despair of people who have given up, who have interiorized what the general consensus decrees and believe themselves that you are what you deserve to be, that some are rich because they are worth it, and others poor because they simply don’t try hard enough. This book is not an open, cheap accusation; it’s rather like a silent scream telling the reader that there is a Deep System in the USA—and that Deep System is not at all what people pretend, but an undercurrent that holds up the country. One could call it social blindness, one could call it self-righteousness, one could call it cold-blooded egotism.
I was overwhelmed by this book, the rich writing, the swaps between main plot and subplots. Despite the main character having a strong passive streak (he feels too tired to protest, too depleted to rebel), I found him very endearing, and I was glad to detect (perhaps mistakenly) a shimmer of hope at the very end of the book. I understand perfectly well why the Lambda Award was given to this book and this writer. Bryan Washington is a strong voice in contemporary writing, a young man who I’m sure still has many important things to tell. (This review has been published on Rainbow Book Reviews under the name of ParisDude)
- CharlieReviewed in Australia on October 8, 2022
3.0 out of 5 stars hard to get into
This is one book I found difficult to get into. It took me a long time to finish it. I felt it was very disjointed and couldn’t get into the rhythm. I guess I lost interest and didn’t concentrate to understand what it was about. I a. Not sure if it’s the book or it was me.
- MariReviewed in Germany on June 20, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Tough start, but gets better with every story
I had a rough time getting into Bryan Washington's style of writing. But when I finally found myself into it, I was rooting for the characters and there really was only one, maybe two stories that I didn't warm up to.