Palaver is a novel about an estranged mother and son who are suddenly staying together in Tokyo and have to try and navigate the spaces in their lives for their relationship. The son lives in Japan, having left Texas and his homophobic brother for life as an English tutor, spending his evenings drinking in a gay bar in Ni-Chome. All of a sudden, his mother arrives in Japan, unexpectedly. They struggle to live alongside one another, but as they slowly start to talk, and they both develop other connections in Tokyo, they start to gain more understanding of each other at this moment in their lives.
Having read Washington’s previous novels and short story collection, I would’ve read this anyway, but the fact that it is set in Japan and explores a gay man’s experiences in Tokyo was even more of a selling point. The book feels deeply immersed in Tokyo, and in ideas of community and location in relation to loneliness and separation. It creates a vivid atmosphere, even in the mundane details. The son spends time with a group who gather at a local gay bar, many of whom have moved from other countries to Japan, and the book is full of characters who move in search of home, whatever that might be. I liked the subplot about the bar patrons and the bar owner getting top surgery and them all supporting his recovery, which serves as a quiet reminder of queer community and family in a book all about the fact that family shouldn’t just be taken as a given.
Quietly powerful, Palaver is a book that manages to be deeply about its characters and their present and past, but also very much about its setting too, and the importance of places and what they mean to people.
Fiendfully Reading 
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