Bryan Washington’s Palaver is set in Tokyo and revolves around two characters – ‘the son’ and ‘the mother’ – who gradually get to understand each other after a period of estrangement. The son works as an English tutor by day, and drinks his nights away with friends in the gay bars of the city. When the mother turns up unexpectedly, he instantly resents her appearance and interference.
But what unfolds is a subtle and deft look at family relationships and dynamics, all captured in the hazy lights of a bustling and unfamiliar cityscape. The mother’s narrative passages especially reflect her alienation from both her son and the city she finds herself in, observing the diverse and bamboozling energy around her first in confusion, then gradually with more confidence and assurance.
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And the novel gradually deepens all of this with great authorial confidence. The reader comes to realise the reason for the mother’s unexpected arrival, and we get much more of the wider familial troubles, from the mother’s background in Jamaica to the son’s brother, who has spent time in prison.
Washington’s typically understated prose style works like a magic trick – much of what matters most in Palaver happens between the lines, the meaning behind the oblique dialogue, the depth of observations from both his leading characters.
And the moody, black and white photographs of Tokyo are the icing on the cake in a wonderfully moving piece of fiction.
