Mr. Yay

A hilarious, delightful genre-blending speculative novel about rappers and dogs, love and marriage, private detectives, nostalgia, and embracing your true self, in a world where the past is different than what you remember.

Budding musician Fatty Bratty wakes up in his terrible apartment to a random dog. A dog that acts like he belongs there. Except Bratty doesn’t own a dog. He always wanted to but never did. So maybe this random dog is a sign: screw his parents’ expectations. Forget business school. Instead, over a manic week, he and his best friend write and record their first rap album. They call themselves Mr. Yay.

Bratty’s therapist Miriam remembers a different Mr. Yay, the one from the old children’s TV show, the washed-up actor turned first mate who sailed a boat captained by a dog and taught people to be themselves. To just be. But strangely, her husband, Jack, has no memory of the old show at all.

As Mr. Yay climbs the charts with his rap songs, Miriam watches her life unravel. Jack is increasingly absent, more secretive, reckless—he hardly resembles the man she married. Their friends start acting weird too: drinking excessively, splurging on motorcycles, quitting their jobs, not washing their hair, harboring raccoons. Jack also doesn’t remember things he should about his relationship with Miriam. But he suspects his memory hole is more than it seems. It’s not just that he’s forgotten the Mr. Yay show—it’s that, on the internet, and according to the studio and half the population, there is no Mr. Yay. There never was.

Witty, heartfelt, deeply weird and utterly original, Mr. Yay explores how we grapple with inexplicable sudden shifts in the world around us, and the conspiracy theories and identity crises they birth. If the past we remember has changed, are we who we think we are? Is anyone?