Jackson Alone
Jose Ando
Translated by Kalau Almony
Hardback
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15 January 2026Imprint: Footnote Press
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 rumours 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. Fuelling 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, exploit the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart to trick people who've wronged them.
From an Akutagawa prize winning author, 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 rumours 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. Fuelling 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, exploit the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart to trick people who've wronged them.
From an Akutagawa prize winning author, 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 2026
9781804442838Imprint: Footnote Press
Reviews
With its award-winning author and fierce themes of identity and retribution, this novel promises an unforgettable, conversation-starting read.
Heartbreaking, hilarious, and harrowing, Jose Ando's Jackson Alone astounds. Investigating queerness, Blackness, and difference in a vibrant, ever-shifting Tokyo, Ando's novel blends buddy-comedy, whodunit and cultural excavation into a story about the many different ways we belong (and don't). I've never read anything like Ando's prose-Jackson Alone transcends the form
A unique idea, it reminds me of the work of Jordan Peele
The harmony that Jackson Alone finds between a pressing social theme and rhythmical narration filled me with a strange excitement I had never before experienced
