Jackson Alone
by Jose Ando

Four Black Japanese gay men team up to exact revenge in a culture where discrimination is deep seated. A searing, darkly funny debut from the Akutagawa Prize winning author.

Nobody at the corporate offices of Athletius Japan knows much about the massage therapist, Jackson—but rumors abound. He used to work as a model. He likes to party. He’s mixed race—half Japanese, half somewhere in Africa n. He might be gay. Fueling the gossip is the sudden appearance of a violent pornographic video featuring a man who looks a lot like Jackson.

When Jackson serendipitously meets three other queer mixed race guys, he learns he’s not the only one being targeted. Together they concoct a plan: find out who’s responsible and, in the meantime, switch identities and play tricks on people—a boyfriend, a boss—who’ve wronged them, exploiting the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart.

A short, blistering gut punch of a novel, Jackson Alone is at turns satirical and deadpan, angry and tender—a frank exploration of identity, race, and queerness in contemporary Japan that announces Jose Ando as a singular new talent in the global literary scene.