White Tears

Hari Kunzru Hamish Hamilton €20.99

Kunzru wrote about ‘listening to New York’ in a 2014 multimedia e-book that featured the music of the legendary Moondog. His new novel portrays a music geek named Seth, whose recordings of NYC street sounds mysteriously capture a song by a legendary Twenties blues artist. Themes of art and authenticity drive a mix of several narrative tracks: two quests to the American South tied to the song’s only recording, a savage beating, a murder and a wealthy family’s dark secrets. A taut, intense work in which, as in Kunzru’s Gods Without Men, time and reality are highly malleable.