White Tears
Hari Kunzru · 2017
Two white music obsessives record an old Black man singing on the street; a ghost story about cultural appropriation and historical violence erupts. Kunzru's novel does something formally strange with time and genre in service of a serious argument about who owns American music and who pays for it.
The case against
Half of this novel is sharp: two record collectors, one fabricated blues 78, a hoax that comes true. Then the time-slip horror takes over, the rules dissolve, and Seth stops cohering as a narrator just when you need him solid. Kunzru's argument about appropriation survives the wreck. The plot mostly doesn't.
Best of Last 10 Years · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
