Something Close to Nothing

First comes surrogacy, then comes the messy gay breakup in Tom Pyun’s tragi-comic debut novel that asks, is it ever too late to finally face yourself and grow up?

Winston Kang and Jared Cahill seem like the perfect couple. When they check-in for their flight to Cambodia, where they’re headed to meet the surrogate carrying their baby girl, even the woman at the airline counter recognizes it: “I’m so happy that marriage is legal for you guys,” she says.

But while Jared is already planning for their second kid—half white like him, half Korean like Wynn—Wynn isn't ready to give up his dreams of becoming a hip-hop dancer to become "the hostage of a crying, pooping terrorist." So he does what anyone in his position would do: He leaves Jared at the airport.

Wynn sets off on a journey around the globe, trying to figure out what it means to put himself first, from auditioning for Misty Espinoza’s comeback tour to organizing a Prince-themed flash mob. Oceans away, Jared starts to panic that no one in his life can talk to Meryl about her period or what it’s like to grow up Asian American.

Told in alternating points of view, Pyun’s sardonic and addictive page-turner confronts questions of race, identity, and privilege, and facing the question of whether it’s ever too late to finally face yourself and grow up.

Tom Pyun earned his MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and has been awarded fellowships by the Vermont Studio Center, VONA, and Tin House. His creative fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Rumpus, Reed Magazine, Joyland, and Blue Mesa Review. His essay, “Mothers Always Know,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net 2015.