Harmless Like You

Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2017

When the meaning of 'home' is complicated, we strive for a sense of connection. Yet sometimes being alone feels like the easiest choice to make.

In 1968, Yuki is 16 and has not one friend in all of New York. It's the year her parents move back to Tokyo, but Yuki decides to stay. As she sketches out her new life, it is also the year she'll fall in love with a shade of orange, climb out a window, meets an aspiring model, and run tangle-haired through the night. In 2016 gallery owner Jay becomes a father, believing he is a happily married man. It's the year he will finally confront his mother, who abandoned their family when he was two years old. Her name is Yuki Oyama and she has been living for decades as an artist in Berlin.

Written with startling beauty and power, Harmless Like You explores the complexities of identity and art and captures, over decades and cities, a fractured family narrative of love, loneliness and reconciliation.