Tag: Change

  • Short Story Review: “Last Coffeehouse on Travis” by Bryan Washington

    (The short story “Last Coffeehouse on Travis” by Bryan Washington appeared in the September 16th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Delaney Allen for The New Yorker

    The only constant in life is change – nothing stays the same forever. The older I get, the more I think about this. There are things I wish would stay the same forever, but I also know how foolish of a wish that is. And then there were times in my life that I thought nothing would ever change, only for the ground to slowly shift under my feet. These were some of the thoughts I had as I was reading Bryan Washington’s “Last Coffeehouse on Travis.”

    The story is set in Houston in the very recent past. Specifically, in the Midtown neighborhood before gentrification changed the area. At the start of the story, the narrator is being politely kicked out of his aunt’s home and is going to live with Margo and her son Walter. In exchange for a free place to stay, the narrator will have to work at Margo’s coffeeshop not too far away. Margo is master coffee maker, and the majority clientele at the coffeehouse are recently arrived white gentrifiers. But there is to be a solid group of regulars, mainly black and latinx, who form the community of this story. As Washington lets his story develop, mainly through Margo’s coffee making and the narrator’s attempt to learn from her, we come to see people in states of change, both wanted and unwanted.

    Now that I have that very simplistic description out of the way…

    There were a couple of times that I felt that this story could fall off the rails and land in a pool of clichés; The narrator continually trying to make a cup of coffee that impresses Margo, or a character reveals some deep dark secret trauma from their past, or the climax being some explosion of a fight between two characters that should be working together. No, Bryan Washington was playing with me, because he crafts full, lived in characters that I could see myself running into on my block and having a conversation with. These are characters that want to learn from each other. Characters that have pain and mistakes in their past, but that pain doesn’t define them, nor stop them from going out and living and trying to make connections.

    Then there is the craftsmanship to Washington’s writing. The very subtle touches he uses to forward the story and develop characters. How Margo never asks, she tells people what to do. The very short but efficient descriptions of the neighborhood, to create the feel of this setting, as something that is slipping away, but at this moment, it was very alive. Another aspect that I thought was well written was how gentrification was this underlining menace to the story and its characters. Change maybe unavoidable, but it is not always good. We know from the beginning of the story that the neighborhood will change, and Margo and the coffeehouse won’t be there in the future. It’s touched on in the right way to amplify the theme without belaboring the point. This is good writing, where nothing felt wasted or superfluous. This story was made the way it needed to be.

    Which brings me to how well the climax of this story worked. Again, I go back to the fact that Washington was playing with our expectations by starting this section with, “The morning that it happened…” My mind went to dramatic ends of what could possibly be coming. In fact, the final paragraph of the section before, the narrator even acknowledges that no matter how well things are going, it can’t stay this way forever. (See, Bryan Washington is priming us.) But what follows are characters understanding that it is time for them to move on to whatever is next, because things are changing. There is a rise in action, a true climax, but it is treated in an honest way that I wasn’t expecting, and I am also trying not to ruin this story for people. Sorry that’s vague.

    I love reading Bryan Washington’s work. It moves in ways that feel familiar but also unexpected at the same time. I loved being with his characters, not at the most dramatic moment in their lives, but a very pivotal one. These are moments that take us to the next place, and Bryan Washington reminds us how valuable those moments are.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Premier League Begins, Commuting to School, and Change is Coming

    (You can have yours, just gimme mine…)

    Later today, the Premier League starts up for the season. Clearly, and no one can dissuade me from this, Tottenham Hotspur will win the whole League. Yup, they will sit atop the table and lord it over Man City, and the forever a league-bridesmaid; Arsenal. Sure, Spurs qualified for the Europa League, just falling short of the Champions League goal, but hey! We’ll take whatever hardware that is offered. Am I over confidant? You Bet’cha! (I am a Cowboys fan, after all.)  I have paid for all the services, against my better judgement, so I will be able to watch every match. Not sure if I can get myself to go to the local Spurs bar and start drinking at 7am on game day, but we’ll see – that still feels like a goal to aim for in the next year or two. Either way, I’m ready for English football. (An Aside: I will still keep my eye on Brentford, as I still like the scrappiness of that team. They’re fun to root for.) I do feel that a new Tottenham scarf could be in my future, maybe even a sweater. Putting it out there, see if it manifests itself. You know. #COYS

    I had a moment this morning, when I was taking the kid to school, I started to ponder how different the way my kid goes to school is compared to how I went to school when I was her age. The kid takes the subway to school, and is accompanied by me. Sometimes a friend from school will be on the train with us, but most mornings, it’s just us. Sometimes we chat, sometimes she reads. It is the subway, so every now and then, an incident has happened; crazy guy, someone begging for change, homeless guy sleeping on a bench, or people yelling at each other. On the whole, most mornings the people on the train are tired, not in the mood to interact with anyone, and just want to be left alone. At her age, my family lived in a generic suburb, and I walked down the block in the neighborhood and caught the school bus with about five or so other kids. No one escorted me; I would say bye to my mom, and walk out the door. The bus stop could be dicey on certain mornings. This was grade school, kindergarten to 6th grade, so you could have 5 to 12-year-olds out there. Some mornings it was “Lord of the Flies” with kids being shitty to each other, but most days it was just a conversation about cartoons. Getting on the bus had its own perils; social order, and ostracization could be on full display. Would you get a seat? Who would you sit with? Would it be an older kid who would bully you the whole way to school? The anxiety, drama and fear! When I think about it, the subway isn’t so bad.

    And as school has started and Autumn is on its way, I have started to think that this is the time to begin the process of change. Or at least evaluation to determine if change is needed. I do know that if I am thinking about change, I should change. I need a better work schedule, and a more rigorous regime at the gym, as pants are getting tight. (I might have mentioned that.) I should get better sleep, and possibly change up my wardrobe – more sportscoats? Maybe this is a moustache year? Not that something needs to give, but it would be nice to change things up. I don’t think I ever want to be set in my ways. Roots are good, but being unable to bend with the wind sounds detrimental.

  • Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid

    (The short story “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid appeared in the May 16th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (This story will be Spoiled!)

    I didn’t know I had been waiting for a story, but “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid was the story I had been waiting for. I thought I knew what I was getting, then I was surprised, then I felt ashamed that I had judged it, only to again think I knew where this story was going, only to arrive at an ending that was conclusive, but also left me pleasantly wondering what all of this meant. I love that feeling. It reminds me of being in a college English class, and we have just finished reading a story that we are all jazzed up about, and we can’t wait to discuss it, to see if someone else saw it the same way that I did.

    The story is about a white man, Anders, who wakes up one day to find that his skin color has changed to brown. Right off the bat, I thought I was about to get a modern retelling of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” Anders soon learns that this change is affecting other people in his city. Slowly, tensions start growing in this city. Anders goes to see his father, who has not changed and is still white. We learn that the father and Anders have a strained relationship, neither really coming to understand the other. Where the father was a construction foreman, a physically tough man, Anders never lived up to that standard. Though the father doesn’t understand or recognize his son, the father still loves and attempts to protect his child, by giving Anders a rifle to protect himself. Soon, society begins to break apart; militias form, people who have changed are now evicted, violence is everywhere. Anders has a confrontation at his apartment, an attempt to evict him, and though he stands his ground, he knows he has to leave. The only safe place is his father’s home, where he goes, and the two of them hole up together. Soon, it is clear that the father is dying, and Anders sees to it that he takes care of his father to the end. And at the funeral, the father is the only white person left, as all of the people attending are now brown skinned.

    First of all, much respect to Hamid for writing a story that was not easy to predict where it was going. Always a good sign. Second, there is so much to unpack. Was this a story about race? Clearly it was. Was this a story about how the paternal generation comes to not recognize and understand their children’s generation? Yes, that is also true. I think it was also about loving unconditionally. It was all of that, and it was great. I also like that after Anders goes through this change, society comes out on the other side, and everything starts to return back to normal. There was a menace in this story, a tension that I felt was going to explode, but the fact that it didn’t played well into the theme of the story. There were all of these things happening, which was bringing up questions in my mind, asking if this is how society would react to a change like that, or is our current society reacting this way because a great change is under way?

    I don’t know, but it is fun and challenging to ask and ponder these questions.

    But all of it was pulled together and held tightly by Hamid’s writing. His word choice, the flow of the sentences, and the use of repetition of a phrase in a sentence; it was enjoyable just to read this prose. I am now a fan of Mohsin Hamid. I feel like he was a friend, gently nudging me to ask questions, and look a little closer at the world around me.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)