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.
‘A unique idea, it reminds me of the work of Jordan Peele’ – Amy 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 experienced’ – Yoko Ogawa
‘The rhythm of Jose Ando’s Jackson Alone is wonderful, as is the richly forceful premise’ – Hiromi 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
‘The image of a member of a minority group, so often forced into isolation, increasing by one, two, three, many, is radical. I read in this work a challenge to the public’s frustration with minorities, the very people who it should protect. It seemed to be saying, ‘We’re going to keep increasing. How many more until you try and seal us away again?” – Shuichi Yoshida
Jose Ando (Author)
Jose Ando was born and raised in Tokyo and is of African-Asian heritage. His debut novel Jackson Alone was awarded the 59th Bungei Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Akutagawa Prize, as was his second novel The Camouflaged Man. His third novel Dtopia won the 172nd Akutagawa Prize, solidifying his presence as one of Japan’s brightest young literary stars.
Kalau Almony (Translator)
Kalau Almony is a Japanese-English literary translator based in Kawasaki, Japan and a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts translation fellow. Born and raised in Kailua, Hawai?i, Kalau completed his BA in Comparative Literature at Brown University and MA in East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Hawai?i at Manoa.
