Publishers Weekly
★ 02/05/2024
Kunzru (Red Pill) takes on the excessive and rapacious tendencies of the art world in his dazzling latest. Jay, a 40-something undocumented performance artist from India, left behind the competitive milieu of his London art school after becoming disillusioned, and has supported himself with various manual labor jobs. Now, during the first summer of the Covid-19 pandemic, he lives in his car and delivers groceries in Upstate New York. The gig brings him to the home of his ex-girlfriend Alice and his former best friend Rob, whom Alice left him for 20 years earlier in London. Fatigued and beleaguered by brain fog two months after getting Covid, Jay cautiously reenters his old friends’ lives. Alice, stuck managing Rob’s studio, is reminded of the freer life she used to lead with Jay, while Rob, a successful painter, reveals himself to be a consummate art monster, cheating on Alice and spending too much of their money on lavish, boozy parties. When Rob’s gallerist, Marshal, learns of Jay’s long-running self-documentation project, Fugue, he’s desperate to work with the performance artist. If Jay doesn’t let his life’s work be documented, Marshal argues, “It will slip away into nothingness you’re just some guy who left the art world.” The gripping tension between Jay and the rest of the cast gives way in the graceful final scene to a feeling as melancholy as watching a beloved painting get auctioned off in a beige room at Sotheby’s. This is immensely satisfying. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (May)
From the Publisher
I read everything Hari Kunzru writes, for my highest pleasure and my deepest sustenance.”
—Rachel Kushner
“Kunzru brings his singular mix of dread and intrigue to his latest fiction, an intricate tale of artistic creation, greed and exploitation set in upstate New York under the specter of Covid.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A provocative portrait of a once-promising artist as a disillusioned man of a certain age.”
—TIME Magazine
“[Blue Ruin] promises to be harrowing and darkly funny. Kunzru has a knack for the nightmarish present, and few things feel more nightmarish than a forced confrontation with the past in the early stages of the pandemic.”
—Lit Hub, “Most Anticipated Books of 2024”
“Kunzru’s [Blue Ruin] is a triumph of beauty and a true ode to the artist.”
—Oprah Daily, “Most Anticipated Books of 2024”
“Kunzru takes on the excessive and rapacious tendencies of the art world in his dazzling latest . . . [Blue Ruin] is immensely satisfying.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred
“A lively, ever-intensifying story of race, immigration, work, and what it means to earn a living . . . [Blue Ruin is] a darkly ironic tale of two bubbles—an art world divorced from economic reality and a Covid era that segregated us from society . . . A dark, smart, provocative tale of the perils of art making.”
—Kirkus, starred
“Exquisite writing and keen insights into class tensions and creative dilemmas. Kunzru affirms that it’s always a good time to live an examined life, even during a pandemic.”
—Booklist, starred
“Brilliant . . . Coincidence is a dangerous narrative tool to mess around with, but Kunzru pulls it off in Blue Ruin thanks to the subtle characterizations and intricate layers with which he expands his premise. Buried resentments and jettisoned ambitions come to the fore as Kunzru explores themes of racism, opportunism and the inequities of privilege and hardship. The result is an exceptional work that finds new variations on the familiar chestnut that people aren’t always what they seem.”
—BookPage, starred
Library Journal
04/01/2024
While making a grocery delivery during the early months of the pandemic, Jay stumbles into a COVID pod occupied by, among others, his ex-girlfriend Alice and her now husband (and Jay's former best friend), Rob. Twenty years earlier, the three had been part of an artists' community in London. Rob has since become a moderately successful painter, while Jay, a conceptual performance artist, has disappeared from the art world; at the time of the novel's opening, is unhoused, living illegally in the United States, and subsisting on gig work. Rob, who is at the moment artistically blocked, is unwilling to believe that Jay's sudden reappearance in his life is by chance. Meanwhile, gallerist Marshall, who has fallen into the hole of online conspiracy theories, is trying to make lucrative art deals involving Rob and a former mentor. VERDICT Kunzru (Red Pill) has a gift for vivid, visceral description, whether it's the drug-fueled squalor of London's underground art scene or the gentrified New York compound where Jay finds himself. Along the way, there are thematic threads involving the commodification of art and conflicts of class and race (both Jay and Alice are biracial). Kunzru's unique style and perspective make for a fun, though edgy ride.—Christine DeZelar-Tiedman
MAY 2024 - AudioFile
Hari Kunzru narrates his novel, set during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jay, once a rising star in the British art world, is now living in his car in the U.S. Kunzru lends his own English accent and gravelly timbre to working-class Jay. One day, on his pizza delivery route, Jay's ex, Alice, opens the door, feels sorry for him, and offers him shelter. She's living with the man she left him for on a large property. As Jay reconnects with the world he left behind and with his identity as an artist, a violent conspiracy theorist is also living with his girlfriend on the property. The convergence of these five characters creates a volatile mix. Kunzru's contemplative narration captures the deeply personal side of art in relation to the artist. C.R. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2024-02-17
A starving artist stumbles into his past—and the ugly side of wealth—in this prickly allegory.
Kunzru’s seventh novel is narrated by Jay, who in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic is in ill health, getting by delivering groceries in upstate New York. His route takes him to an estate that’s coincidentally occupied by Alice, a former flame, and her husband, Rob, Jay’s one-time art school rival. Alice is disinclined to bring him into their pod for fear of infection—or of stoking old drama—so instead hides him in a barn while his health improves. In the weeks that follow, Jay recalls the messiness of their relationships three decades prior: He and Alice were once inseparable, and he and Rob competed in British art school but were also friendly, bonded by ambition and drugs. But as their art world fortunes diverged, Jay’s despair and drug use intensified, prompting Alice to leave him for Rob. Kunzru cannily withholds a few details about this dynamic, but from the start the novel is a study of the complications of art, money, and identity. Is Rob more free as an artist for having access to wealthy patrons? Does Jay have more integrity for sabotaging his art world prospects? And why do muses like Alice absorb so much abuse up on that pedestal? This novel completes a kind of trilogy by Kunzru on contemporary social crises, from systemic racism (White Tears, 2017) to neofascism (Red Pill, 2020) to, here, Gilded Age income inequality, topped off with paranoia and misinformation. The love triangle plot is a bit potted, and tonally and thematically Kunzru is borrowing from Martin Amis’ 1980s work. But it’s a lively, ever-intensifying story as Jay weaves in discussions of race, immigration, work, and what it means to earn a living. It’s a darkly ironic tale of two bubbles—an art world divorced from economic reality and a Covid era that segregated us from society.
A dark, smart, provocative tale of the perils of art making.
