From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today a profound and enthralling novel about beauty
power and capital' s influence on art and those who devote their lives to creating it.
' Blue Ruin is bracingly intelligent and often just plain beautiful. It’s a reminder that
fiction at its best is a place to encounter new experiences and dwell in big ideas. Kunzru is
known for ambitious novels that bring politics to rich imaginative life Blue Ruin shows him
at the top of his game.' Sandra Newman Guardian ' Book of the Day' ' I read
everything Hari Kunzru writes for my highest pleasure and my deepest sustenance.' Rachel
Kushner ' Genuinely thrilling...both a sharp dissection of the oily inner workings of the
art world and a compelling portrait of one man’s desperate attempt to escape complicity in the
capitalist machine.' Financial Times Once Jay was tipped for greatness a rising star of
the London art scene. Now he lives out of his car and earns money delivery groceries to the
wealthy of upstate New York while all around a terrible pandemic rages. When Jay arrives at a
house set in an enormous acreage of woodland he is shocked to see somebody he thought forever
lost to him. Standing on the porch is Alice a lover from his art school days. Their
relationship was tumultuous and destructive ultimately ending when she left him for his best
friend and fellow artist Rob. Alice and Rob have achieved the riches and success for which Jay
once seemed destined. Ashamed and debilitated by the virus that has ravaged his body Jay hopes
she won' t recognise him behind his dirty surgical mask. When she does however she invites
him to recover on the property setting in motion a reckoning decades in the making. Gripping
and brilliantly orchestrated Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time to deliver an
extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he
once loved and left behind. ' Kunzru' s brilliance is his ability to fold vertiginous
questions [...] into his storytelling. In its unnerving depiction of [...] uneasy relationships
Blue Ruin not only keeps pace with White Tears and Red Pill but also confirms his status
as a master choreographer of the present moment' s creeping anxiety.' Literary Review
“[ 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 “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
“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
