Short Stories 366:268 — “Elgin,” by Bryan Washington

And here we are at the end of Lot: Stories. Holy flying crap, this collection was amazing. I've mentioned it a few times, but throughout the collection, we return to a single (unnamed) man who begins the collection with his parents running a restaurant and his older brother and sister and himself living together. As …

Short Stories 366:261 — “Waugh,” by Bryan Washington

Oof, this story. Okay, we meet Poke, a young sex-worker who is brought into a home by Rod (another sex-worker) where a group of men live and work together under Rod's rules as a kind of family/protective unit, and for a while, things are—if not good—stable, and much safer than they could have been otherwise. …

Short Stories 366:254 — “Fannin,” by Bryan Washington

In Lot: Stories, there's a narrator who shows in about half of the stories (a third?) and nudges the narrative a little further along each time. He has an older brother, an older sister, a mother and a father in the first tale—when his father leaves them—and as the stories progress, the sister meets someone …

Short Stories 366:247 — “Peggy Park,” by Bryan Washington

Some authors have the skill to turn character into narrative, and it's one of those things that I find myself studying, dissecting, and trying hard not to descend entirely into paralytic envy over, but I love this type of short story so very much that I generally get over it just to sit back and …

Short Stories 366:240 — “Navigation,” by Bryan Washington

We're back with the unnamed character we revisit in Lot: Stories with "Navigation," and this story is like a short, sharp, shock to the system. In the last tale with him, what's left of his family has fractured down to his mother and himself, with occasional visits from his sister, and now the restaurant is …

Short Stories 366:233 — “South Congress,” by Bryan Washington

Prior to this story from Lot: Stories, I'm not sure I've ever read a story centred around dealing drugs evoking this much empathy. Even that's not right, not the right words, but I can't think of better ones right now, so it's how I'll put it. "South Congress" follows Raúl, a Guatemalan who is in …