The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Washington, Bryan. Palaver. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025.

The mother leaves Portmore, Jamaica, and eventually builds a life in Houston, carrying memories of her brother, Stefan, who photographs their early years and remains a defining figure in her sense of family. In Texas she marries, has two sons, and works as a secretary, trying to keep the household stable even as the people around her drift. As the younger son grows up, he becomes close to a man named Chris and begins to live more openly as he wants, which creates lasting strain at home. The son also endures periods of intense despair, including an earlier attempt to hurt himself, and the mother learns to live with the fear of losing him.

Years later, the son is living in Tokyo, where he tutors for work, keeps a small apartment with his cat, Taro, and spends nights in Ni-chōme among friends who have become his day-to-day family. He has gone months without speaking to the mother when he calls her suddenly from Japan. Alarmed by the call and by the possibility that he is in trouble again, the mother books a flight and travels to Tokyo for a short visit in December.

In Shin-Ōkubo, the mother gets lost almost immediately and ends up in a nearby bistro owned by Ben, who treats her with casual kindness. The son meets her there, frustrated by how quickly she has wandered beyond the instructions he left. He brings her back to his one-room apartment, where she is shocked by the cold, the lack of space, and the fact that he has built a life she cannot easily picture. They argue, fall into silences, and circle each other warily, while the mother tries to learn the neighborhood on foot and the son avoids being confined with her.

The son’s life outside the apartment is anchored by Alan’s bar, Friendly, where Alan, a trans man who survived cancer and reinvented himself in Tokyo, welcomes the son as a regular. The son’s circle includes Iseul, Binh, Santi, Mahiro, and others who work, drink, and look after one another with a mix of teasing and loyalty. The son’s romantic ties are complicated. He continues sleeping with Taku, an old companion, even as Taku and Aiko prepare to raise a baby, and he grows closer to Tej, a man whose own background includes constant movement between countries and cities.

As the visit continues, the mother keeps returning to Ben’s bistro, where she and Ben talk more easily than she can with her son. Ben admits that his relationship with his own adult son, Jun, is damaged, and the mother recognizes versions of her own fears in Ben’s story. At the same time, she is pulled toward Stefan, who is living in Tokyo and failing. When she finds him, their old intimacy resurfaces alongside resentment over years of distance and unmet expectations, and the mother tries to insist that he should not be left alone.

Stefan’s health worsens, and the mother arrives at his bedside as he is dying. After he dies, she realizes there will be no traditional funeral because their wider family wants nothing to do with him, and she prepares to take part of his ashes while leaving the rest behind. Grief sharpens the conflict between mother and son. The mother asks the son to come back to Houston, while the son insists that Japan is his home and that returning would mean abandoning the life he has built. The argument leaves both of them raw and angry, and the son pulls away into the city.

Despite this, the mother is gradually drawn into the son’s community. She meets more of his friends and sees how they commit to each other, especially when Alan needs surgery and the group organizes meals and nightly check-ins. The son takes the mother on a Christmas trip to Nara, traveling by train and staying at a ryokan, where the mother wanders through Nara Park and watches the deer and crowds. The trip also exposes the son’s private life, including an encounter he has with a man he meets there. Not long after, the son is hit by a car in Nara and breaks his wrist, returning to Tokyo in a cast and fielding both concern and jokes from the people around him.

The mother stays long enough to help him through the first days of recovery, and the visit becomes less about managing a crisis and more about learning what the son’s life actually contains. As her departure approaches, she begins to speak more directly about the son’s relationships, including his boyfriend, and the son both resists and allows the conversation to continue. The mother eventually prepares to fly home from Narita, leaving the son in Tokyo with the people who have become his support system.

In the final section set in early spring, the son narrates in first person. He continues his life in Tokyo with Tej and his friends, moves through the care routines around Alan’s recovery, and stays connected to Ben and Jun. He mails a letter and waits for a reply from Chris. When his phone rings, he steps aside and answers the mother, suggesting that their contact continues after the visit ends.