Palaver

A Jamaican-born woman living in Houston, referred to only as "the mother," arrives in Tokyo to visit her estranged adult son, who has lived in Japan for over a decade. The novel traces their fraught reunion across two weeks in Shin-Ōkubo, a multiethnic neighborhood near Shinjuku, while moving between present-day Tokyo and memories of Jamaica, Toronto, and Houston that illuminate the fractures in their relationship.

The mother is lost on her first day, unable to read Japanese signs. She wanders into a small bistro, where the son eventually finds her, annoyed. She complains his apartment has no heat; he says she should have followed the instructions he left. His apartment is a single room above a Taiwanese restaurant, barely big enough for two. He smokes on the balcony and tells her she should go home.

What brought the mother across the world was a phone call the previous week. The son's name appeared on her screen at an unusual hour. When she answered, he apologized, something he had not done in years. She asked whether he had tried to hurt himself, referencing a previous incident. After a long silence, he said no and hung up. She called Angela, her coworker at the dental office, and together they booked the flight.

The son's private life unfolds after the mother falls asleep each night. He takes the train to Kabukichō, Shinjuku's entertainment district, to meet Taku, a man he has been sleeping with regularly. Taku has a wife who lives across town. Over dinner, the son shares fragments of his background: His mother is Jamaican, his older brother Chris is in a Texas prison for selling cocaine laced with fentanyl, and the family moved from Toronto to Houston.

Flashbacks to the son's childhood reveal the origins of his distance from the mother. As a boy, he discovered notebooks in the attic filled with her poetry. Chris told him she had always written but stopped after the son was born. Weeks later, the son fell through the attic floor and broke an ankle. The mother slept beside his hospital bed, then squeezed his broken ankle until he cried, telling him, "That'll cost you in this life" (17).

The son reluctantly lets the mother stay, setting three rules: She must not get lost, must not ask where he goes at night, and must not bring up Chris. Each morning, her walks lead to the bistro, where the owner, Ben, a divorced Japanese chef from Nara who once lived in Vancouver, walks her home and shares neighborhood stories. Their friendship deepens steadily over the course of her visit.

The mother's memories of Jamaica surface throughout. She grew up with her older brother Stefan, eight years her senior and gay in a place where that was dangerous. When her best friend Cheryl and Cheryl's boyfriend Earl arranged passage to Toronto, the mother could come, but there was no room for Stefan. Before she left, Stefan was beaten badly; he insisted she go anyway. In Toronto, Earl and the mother eventually became partners, and Earl fathered Chris and the son. Years later, Stefan died of AIDS in Kingston, and the mother flew to be with him for his final week.

The son's life in Tokyo is anchored by a community of queer friends at Friendly, a bar in Ni-chōme, Tokyo's queer nightlife district, managed by Alan, a trans man from Kyoto who beat cancer and transitioned in the city. The regulars include Iseul, a Korean man estranged from his family after coming out and testing positive for HIV. These friendships sustain the son, but his stability is fragile.

The novel's emotional center arrives in a flashback. Weeks before the mother's visit, Taku texted the son that they would be spending much less time together. The son drank through bar after bar, missed the last train, and found himself staring down at the tracks, considering throwing himself onto them. Alan appeared and walked him home without asking questions. At the door, Alan asked simply, "Will you be alright" (65). That night, the son called the mother. She appeared a week later.

The mother insists on going out for dinner, and the son takes her to CREAMY!, an izakaya (a casual Japanese pub) in Ni-chōme. Walking home, the mother tells a parable: A crocodile met a hummingbird, and despite the danger, the bird perched on the crocodile's lips each day. When the son asks who is who, the mother replies, "I'm the crocodile and the bird. And you are, too" (44).

The son learns that Taku and his wife Aiko, an American from Seattle, have had a baby. Aiko tells him plainly that he and Taku must stop sleeping together so Taku can be present for the child. The son cries on the train home. Meanwhile, a new connection develops with Tej, a half-Nepalese, half-Japanese man who first helped the son through a panic attack outside Friendly and later reappears at the bar. Their bond grows slowly through errands, conversations, and rides on Tej's moped.

For Christmas, the son takes the mother to Nara and then Kyoto. The mother feeds deer from her palm in Nara Park. In Kyoto, they climb a shrine. At a coffee shop, the mother tells him it is time to come home. The son refuses. That evening, the argument erupts. The son breaks down, telling the mother she beat him, made him feel worthless for being queer, and chose Chris over him. She responds that she did choose Chris and would do it again. She steps toward an intersection without seeing the light change, and a car strikes the son's outstretched hand as he rushes forward.

A flashback illuminates the family's earlier crisis. After Chris returned from his second military deployment, the mother had a breakdown one night, pacing and weeping. The son told Chris to leave the house. Chris protested, but the son gave him the choice, and Chris walked away. The son drove the mother to Angela's house. She asked if everything was her fault. He said no.

Back in Tokyo, an earthquake strikes while the mother is alone. Among the son's fallen books, she discovers unsent letters addressed to Chris and her own poetry notebook from the attic, thought lost decades earlier. She recognizes her handwriting and pushes it back onto the shelf. The son, stranded across the city, walks to Taku and Aiko's apartment and holds the baby for the first time. The next morning, Taku tells him, "We love you. I love you" (268). The son says it back.

In the final days, the mother visits Ben one last time. That evening, the son finds her at CREAMY!. She tells him she has been to a queer bar before, in Houston, with a friend who was "figuring her life out" (291). He is surprised. She says he never asked. He apologizes for everything. The mother tells him maybe it is better he stays in Japan: He has people here.

On her last morning, the son orders food from Hong Lo and takes the mother to Yoyogi Park for a picnic. She tells him to trust himself: "Whatever that means to you. Whatever that looks like. Trust yourself to know yourself. The ones who matter will follow you" (310). Then she says, "Tell me a story" (311).

The narrative shifts to the son's first-person voice. It is early spring. He has sent a letter to Chris in prison and received one back. He told Tej he loved him. Alan is recovering from top surgery while the regulars hold down the bar. The son does not know what he will wear to tonight's party, but he is going. Then the phone rings, and he answers: "Hey, Mom" (318).