Outsider

Tokyo, 2017

Weeks from a birthday that will see her older than her mother ever was, Antoinette seeks two answers: One-how to explain her Master's thesis on light as memory. And two-was her mother's death an accident or a suicide? When a long-lost pen-pal returns to her life, she's propelled her closer to the truth. Kyou, the top star of a gender-bending nabe bar, would sooner die than move into management. She needs an out, she needs cash and, most importantly, she needs an identity. As an unregistered mukoseki, she is a legal anomaly. Officially, Kyou doesn't exist. Their searches for identity intertwine with the lives of a video-game obsessed businessman and a writer who refuses to speak. Across Japan and down to New Zealand, from neon-lit alleys to tiny islands, their journey towards the truth is as tangled as their pasts. Fact and fable blur together in a rich tapestry that ultimately explores what it is to be human.