'Such a joy' Ocean Vuong

'It'll break and remake your heart' Andrew Sean Greer

'You want this gorgeous book' RO Kwon

You took a wrong turn, said the son, tapping for their floor.

I took many turns, said the mother. Which one was wrong?

In Tokyo, a son works as an English tutor, drinking nights away at a gay bar while being entangled with a married man. Estranged from his American family, particularly his mother who always favoured his troubled homophobic brother, he’s built a chosen family in Japan. Then his mother arrives, uninvited.

Separated only by the son’s cat, they bristle against each other, the mother wrestling with memories of Jamaica while the son struggles to forgive her. But, through shared meals and an eventful trip to Nara, both mother and son start to figure out what ‘home’ really means – and whether they can find it in each other.