A daring, compulsively readable novel that journeys into the dark history of modern America.
New Yorkers Carter and Seth are music producers, obsessed with the sounds of the past. They are young, hungry and talented. But one day they stumble on an old blues song - an undiscovered gem just waiting to be found - and accidentally summon the ghosts of a brutal past.
Seeking answers, Seth travels deep into the heart of the old South, accompanied by Carter's bewitching sister Leonie. But this is America, where tugging one loose thread can unravel a bloody history of injustice. Yet the closer Seth gets to the haunting truth, the more he feels pursued . . .
About the Author
Hari Kunzru is the author of The Impressionist, Transmission and the short story collection Noise, and was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, 2003. He is a contributing editor of Mute magazine and sits on the executive council of English Pen. He lives in East London.
Industry Reviews
White Tears is a book that everyone should be reading right now * TIME Magazine *
[A] stunning, audacious, urgent thriller, as challenging as it is terrifying, as brave as it is brutal... It will shock you, horrify you, unsettle you, and that's exactly the point. It lets nothing and nobody off the hook * NPR *
Delilloesque -- moody, threatening, and profoundly dark... A story about ghosts, about grievances leaking through the fabric of decades, and about retribution, violence and hatred. At every turn, Kunzru's words concoct a dreamlike world where the past isn't dead and the boundaries of reality flicker at the margins. * Huffington Post *
Haunting, doom-drenched, genuinely and viscerally disturbing... Kunzru showcases his trademark exhilarating prose throughout - closing with a conclusion that packs a real punch * Independent *
Like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch... A stunning novel of ideas that becomes a page-turning thriller... During Trump's presidency, reading White Tears feels like a necessary and exhilarating act * Stylist *
A disorientating odyssey through decades of American history...Kunzru has always been an assured and intellectually gifted novelist, but I am not sure he has ever before displaying such emotional heft * Daily Telegraph *
Visceral horror, pacey storytelling and razor tautness. White Tears is a state-of-the-nation novel that ties pre-Civil Rights barbarism with a contemporary amnesia that parades as post racial America * Evening Standard *
Graceful [and] exquisitely attuned * Washington Post *
Exquisite... captures a yearning achieved fleetingly in life and more fully in art * i *
At its heart is a serious reminder of how too often history robs the powerless of their voices * Daily Mail *
Think of it as a socially-aware Goosebumps book for grown-ups * Shortlist *
What begins as dude-bro send-up soon spirals into a supernatural revenge fantasy keyed to America's history of racism * Observer *
A captivating satire about race and music * The Week, Novel of the Week *
Both like a radical revenge fantasia and a stern lesson in radical empathy * Spectator *
Kunzru's awareness and discernment have particular value in an America of the moment where nothing less than the country's meaning is at stake... unmoored between the heart that's felt it and the tip of the tongue that awaits the heart's transmission, in search of a promise that's determined to keep itself * The New York Times *
A witty, strange and often very moving book * Financial Times *
Deep themes on the nature of memory, race and authenticity * The Times *
A brave book and often very funny * Sunday Telegraph *
[An] excellent ghost story... A mesmerising tale of white guilt and black oppression in America * Evening Standard *
A nightmarish page-turner... A disorientating odyssey through American history and a lesson in what happens when art is hijacked for less than noble aims * Daily Telegraph *
This rich novel embraces the Deep South, a murder and a wealthy family's dark secret, while riffing on art and authenticity * Mail on Sunday *
Full of verve and rhythm, White Tears cleverly skewers ideas about angst surrounding white appropriation of black music * Financial Times *
A fast-paced, ambitious, hallucinatory mystery * Publishers Weekly *
Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today. * Penguin *
Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force -- Rachel Kushner
Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation... -- Mirza Waheed
Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating -- Bernardine Evaristo
Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists * Independent on Sunday *
Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them * New Yorker *
Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose * Literary Review *
