Jackson Alone
Jose Ando
Translated by Kalau Almony
Hardback
Pre-order now
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 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, 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 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, 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
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
The rhythm of Jose Ando's Jackson Alone is wonderful, as is the richly forceful premise
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.
