This is a beautiful novel of two parallel storylines, the first beginning in 1968, the second unfolding in 2016. Yuki is the artistic teenager who emigrated to New York from Japan as a child, while Jay is the son she has abandoned. The prologue trails a reunion of sorts, then the novel traces how both came to be who they are: fragile people who find deep attachments to other human beings painful. Yuki is a vulnerable outsider, and later the brittle survivor of a flattery turned toxic, while Jay’s disconnection from his wife and baby daughter is given a comic dimension as he furiously prioritises his greatest comfort in life – a bald, 17-year-old cat. Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s debut novel slips impressively from the third-person distance of Yuki’s story to the contemporary first-person troubles of Jay, and both are surrounded by an economically-drawn supporting cast. Once the early prose fireworks settle, Buchanan’s writing simply pops with delightful colour – an intentional echo of Yuki’s chosen career.