Michelle's Reviews > White Tears

Seth is obsessed with music. He hears it in the everyday cacophony of the city street. Each sound emancipating itself, bits parceled into musical arrangements. Awkward around people, he is befriended by Carter, a cock-sure socialite with an obsession for collecting rare Blues recordings. On his travels Seth records a chess player singing in the park. Carter posts it online and passes it off as the lone copy of an unheard of musician by the name of Charlie Shaw. A haunting song, the lyrics become the backdrop of what is to come. The first half of White Tears is about the music and White appropriation of Black culture.

“The names were traded by collectors, but no one seemed to know a thing about them. No information, not a scrap. They were like ghosts at the edges of American consciousness. You have to understand, when I say no one knew, I mean no one. You couldn’t just look something up in a book. Things were hidden. Things got lost. Musicians got lost.”

The second half of the book has alternating chapters of past and present running parallel courses. Like locomotives barreling forward, at times the storylines collide as their tracks cross. The reader is left disorientated, jarred, unable to set themselves right.

A ghost story? A horror? White Tears defies conventional labels. It is a testament to our times. Haunted by the sins of our past, horrified by our present condition in a post-racial society, Kunzru’s White Tears is an indictment of the systematic racism in America. I believe Kunzru means to make the reader uncomfortable. Too many times we as citizens are complacent -- idle bystanders who feel justified in our inactivity.

Phenomenal! Phenomenal Read.