A lonely drifter travels to Japan to work on the book he is writing. His novel remains unwritten as he tries to find distraction in the neon-dreamscape of Tokyo, eats till he drops in Osaka, looks for serenity in Nara, and follows the footsteps of the famous writers who have visited Onomichi before him. He is always looking for that one special moment, a moment of perfection, full of fear he might miss it if he takes a wrong turn. His story is interspersed with short stories focusing on other people, presenting a maelstrom of voices that encompasses the past, present, and future of humanity.
Some of Us are Real is a madcap re-imagination of the classic Odyssey-myth, a tale full of wicked humour, surrealism, magic and gritty realism. There are no Greek monsters in this story, but only FOMO-sirens, existentialist-dread-cyclopes and anxiety-leviathans. Some of Us are Real is a novel about the human condition, in all of its terrifying beauty.
Some of Us are Real is a story about the search for identity in a chaotic world - not the somewhat tired questions of "who am I," but the question of "who am I in the eyes of other people ... and if there is no one to see me, do I exist at all?"
The novel does not belong to a single genre, yet it plays with the rules of genre-fiction. There are elements of science fiction, romance, and surrealism inside. There are splashes of post-modernism, theatre and magic realism. Reading it will confuse readers, will make them angry, but will also delight them. It will give them hope that there is something that can bring us together as human beings.
