Synopsis
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.
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 like 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 who've wronged them, exploiting the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart.
This is a page-turning exploration of race, digital culture, belonging, and the hostility of societies that are supposed to protect us. Written with bite but also with surprising tenderness, Jackson Alone asks complex questions about how we see ourselves and how we see others, as well as what it really means to get revenge.
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 like 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 who've wronged them, exploiting the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart.
This is a page-turning exploration of race, digital culture, belonging, and the hostility of societies that are supposed to protect us. Written with bite but also with surprising tenderness, Jackson Alone asks complex questions about how we see ourselves and how we see others, as well as what it really means to get revenge.
Details
15 January 2026176 pages
9781804442838Imprint: Footnote Press
Reviews
A unique idea, it reminds me of the work of Jordan PeeleAmy Yamada
The harmony that Jackson Alone finds between a pressing social theme and rhythmical narration filled me with a strange excitement I had never before experiencedYoko Ogawa
The rhythm of Jose Ando's Jackson Alone is wonderful, as is the richly forceful premiseHiromi Kawakami
I tip my hat to Jackson Alone. The novel depicts characters belonging to multiple minority groups, a presence only now beginning to be recognized in Japanese society, and does so with a tremendous perceptiveness rooted in the micro level of everyday experience. Its critique holds the power to topple like a row of dominoes the long chain of discrimination stretching through all forms of expressive activity, including literature, each discovery of prejudice exposing another.Keiichiro Hirano