Something Close to Nothing by Tom Pyun – Queer Fatherhood at the Edge of Collapse

Sebastian Hart

A Queer Breakup Story That Starts Where Most Romances End

Most MM romances and queer love stories on this site move toward the moment of building a home together—adopting a pet, moving in, or starting a family. Tom Pyun’s Something Close to Nothing walks in from the opposite direction. The interracial gay couple at its center, an Asian American man and his white partner, are already on the verge of welcoming a child via surrogacy.

It is a moment that, in a different book, would mark the happily‑ever‑after. Instead, Pyun chooses the worst possible timing for a breakup: the weeks when lawyers, doctors, relatives, and friends all assume this family is finally coming together. The result is a novel that reads like a slow‑motion car crash—one that is painful, but impossible to look away from.

This is not a conventional romance, and it is not trying to be. For readers of queer fiction who want their stories neat, comforting, and free of rough edges, Something Close to Nothing will feel like being dragged out past your emotional comfort zone. For anyone interested in the realities of queer family‑building, cross‑cultural relationships, and the fractures within “progressive” communities, it is essential reading.

The Messy Reality of Queer Family Building

The book’s greatest strength is how it refuses to sentimentalise the process of becoming queer parents. Pyun digs into the logistics and emotional labour of:

  • negotiating surrogacy contracts and fertility appointments,
  • dealing with relatives who are supportive in theory but demanding in practice,
  • managing money, time, and expectations as two men try to fit themselves into a model of “good parents” that was never designed with them in mind.

The surrogacy plot is not window dressing. It shapes everything: arguments about where to live, who will take time off work, which partner’s family gets priority, who has the right to be anxious, and who is “allowed” to fall apart. The pregnancy is both a symbol of hope and a live grenade in the middle of the relationship.

Readers who have gone through IVF, adoption, or any form of non‑traditional family‑building will recognise the double pressure here: all the normal fears of parenthood layered over the knowledge that, as queer parents, you are being judged by a harsher standard. The couple’s fracture is not caused by the baby, but the baby throws every existing crack into sharp relief.

Cross‑Cultural Love Without Gloss

The relationship between the Asian American narrator and his white partner is not reduced to a simple “interracial romance” tag. Instead, Pyun shows how race quietly shapes:

  • who feels responsible for smoothing over conflict at family gatherings,
  • whose parents get framed as “difficult” and whose as “eccentric,”
  • which jokes land as micro‑aggressions rather than affection,
  • and who instinctively steps back in public so the other partner can occupy space.

The book is at its best when it tracks the tiny, cumulative moments where cultural habit and internalised racism collide. The Asian hero is hyper‑aware of being seen as both “lucky” to have a white partner and “too much” when he expresses anger. His partner often misreads that anger as personal attack rather than survival strategy.

Instead of giving us a racist villain, Pyun gives us something more uncomfortable: two men who genuinely love each other, and still fail each other because of the stories the world has told them about who they are.

Character Work: Unlikeable, Believable, Human

Neither man is particularly “likeable” in the rom‑com sense. They are selfish, cruel in arguments, and sometimes petty. They weaponise old secrets. They repeat the same bad fights. Yet this is exactly what makes the book compelling.

The narrator’s interiority is sharp and often self‑lacerating. He is aware, on some level, that he is choosing self‑destruction—picking at old wounds, pushing his partner away, flirting with emotional affairs instead of vulnerability. The white partner, meanwhile, hides behind competence and “doing everything right,” resentful that it is not enough to keep his relationship from collapsing.

For readers used to tidy growth arcs and clear external antagonists, this kind of interpersonal mess can feel frustrating. But there is a quiet mastery in how Pyun lets both characters be wrong in different ways, and still salvage something worth keeping.

Queer Fatherhood Without the Instagram Glow

One of the most striking aspects of Something Close to Nothing is how it reframes queer fatherhood. The baby is not a magic bandage for old wounds. Having a child does not automatically teach the men how to communicate, forgive, or be less selfish.

Instead, Pyun asks a harder question:

What happens when two people who cannot stay together are still bound to co‑parent for the rest of their lives?

The novel’s answer is not simple reconciliation, nor ugly custody‑battle melodrama. It is something in between: a fragile, negotiated relationship that has to make room for past harm and future responsibility at the same time.

In a media landscape where queer parenthood is often depicted either as tragedy or as flawless aspirational content, this honesty feels bracing. It acknowledges that being a good father and being a good romantic partner are different skills—and that failure at one does not automatically erase effort at the other.

Who This Book Is For

You will likely appreciate Something Close to Nothing if you:

  • enjoy literary queer fiction more than genre romance,
  • want stories that sit with discomfort instead of resolving it neatly,
  • are interested in interracial dynamics and queer family‑building,
  • or have ever wondered what happens after the “we decided to have a baby!” Instagram post.

If you are currently craving fluffy escapism, this might not be the right moment to pick it up. The book leans into high angst, bad decisions, and the ache of watching something precious fall apart.

But for readers of LGBT Novel Atlas who treat tropes like Second Chance, Redemption Arc, and Trauma Healing as ways to understand lived queer experience—not just as plot engines—Pyun’s novel offers a powerful, unsettling case study.

Takeaways for MM Romance and KDP Authors

  • There is an audience for queer stories that start at the breakup and work outward. Not every book has to be a meet‑cute.
  • Cross‑cultural relationships benefit from specific detail: language, food, family expectations, and micro‑aggressions.
  • Queer parenthood is fertile ground for conflict and tenderness; just remember that the baby cannot fix fundamental incompatibilities on its own.
  • If you write commercial MM romance, reading a book like Something Close to Nothing can sharpen your instincts around what you choose to soften or skip—and what messy truths you might want to keep.

This is not a comfort read, but it is a rich, layered addition to the queer fiction landscape, and a reminder that sometimes the most instructive stories are the ones where love does not look like victory, but like survival.