A gay couple’s messy surrogacy journey is just the start of this very funny novel

Book Review Something Close to Nothing By Tom Pyun Bywater Books: 250 pages, $19.95 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Tom Pyun’s “Something Close to Nothing” feels like one of those books. It’s freedom, community, belonging — a refuge, especially for Wynn, a character in a state of constant motion who declares early on that he doesn’t “want to feel empty anymore.” Crucially for the story Pyun is telling, Wynn wants to be a hip-hop dancer. And Jared is not just any white man, but one who imagines a future where Wynn’s escape becomes an anecdote for their dinner guests, “a well-to-do, racially diverse mix of middle-aged, straight, and gay professional couples.” I should note that I am an Iranian American gay husband and father who was gifted our beloved children through surrogacy. Wynn might be the one who physically runs away from parenthood and prays their surrogate changes her mind or miscarries, but Jared is an equally unprepared parent who at one point thinks of leaving the baby himself to start over “with a California-based surrogate this time.” Ultimately, this is a novel about the darkly hilarious side of our never-satisfied American dreams.