Bryan Washington has a new book arriving soon.
PEOPLE can exclusively reveal the cover of the acclaimed author’s forthcoming novel Palaver, forthcoming this fall from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Washington’s latest is set in Tokyo, where a man lives and works as an English tutor. Estranged from his family in Texas, he’s built his own community abroad with his friends at the gay bar he frequents and through his relationship with a married partner.
But when the man’s mother arrives on his doorstep weeks before Christmas, the two are thrown back into each other’s orbit for the first time in a decade.
As they form new relationships — the man with a new patron at the bar and the mother with a nearby bistro owner — the two must also confront their connection to one another in this “life-affirming novel of family, mending, and how we learn to love,” per the book’s synopsis.
Washington, author of the novels Memorial (2020) and Family Meal (2023), as well as the 2019 short story collection Lot, is known for stories rooted in community, and he tells PEOPLE that Palaver touches upon similar themes.
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“Palaver is a novel about belonging, and what it means to live among others — in a family, among friends, within found family, and the parallel communities we share space and time with; I’m excited for readers to question what belonging and connection means in their own lives,” Washington says.
“Morimoto’s art conveys intimacy and singularity in a way that feels integral to the novel — it’s a dream cover shepherded by Na Kim and Alex Merto,” the author adds of the book’s jacket design.
The National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree also hopes that the novel will push audiences to reflect on their own lives too.
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“I hope Palaver prompts readers to think about their own senses of community, pleasure and comfort — and to consider how caring for others is caring for ourselves, and caring for ourselves is caring for others,” Washington says.
Palaver will be published on Nov. 4 and is now available for preorder wherever books are sold.
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