Blue Ruin

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