White Tears
A novel
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
White Tears is a ghost story, a terrifying murder mystery, a timely meditation on race, and a love letter to all the forgotten geniuses of American music and Delta Mississippi Blues.
"An incisive meditation on race, privilege and music. Spanning decades, this novel brings alive the history of old-time blues and America’s racial conscience."—Rabeea Saleem, Chicago Review of Books
Two twenty-something New Yorkers. Seth is awkward and shy. Carter is the glamorous heir to one of America's great fortunes. They have one thing in common: an obsession with music. Seth is desperate to reach for the future. Carter is slipping back into the past. When Seth accidentally records an unknown singer in a park, Carter sends it out over the Internet, claiming it's a long lost 1920s blues recording by a musician called Charlie Shaw. When an old collector contacts them to say that their fake record and their fake bluesman are actually real, the two young white men, accompanied by Carter's troubled sister Leonie, spiral down into the heart of the nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge, and exploitation.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Equal parts grisly thriller, music history lesson, and incisive racial commentary, White Tears is a dazzling feat of a novel. Hari Kunzru’s story follows struggling young music producer Seth, who impulsively records an elderly blues singer busking in a New York City park. After Seth’s partner, Carter, posts the recording online—claiming it came from a previously undiscovered 1920s musician named Charlie Shaw—the two men are plunged into a terrifying ghost story. Facing down hard questions about cultural appropriation while luxuriating in the mysterious power of the blues, Kunzru puts a fascinating twist on the supernatural thriller.
