I can’t believe I’ve never read Hari Kunzru before when he’s such a well known author but wow, I’m going to investigate his back catalogue after this. Despite the pandemic setting which both is and isn’t that central to the whole story, I absolutely loved this profound, witty and beautifully written novel about time, love, art, privilege and much more. It’s incredibly thought-provoking with deeply involving characterisation and some classic set pieces. Everyone in this novel is realistically messed up in their own way, and the same probably goes for most people reading it. For me this is literary fiction at its finest.

Another pandemic book but one that is thought provoking.

The book shifts between now, Upper State NY at the height of the pandemic, and then London art school. The description of the art world and performance art was interesting - when is art actually art and when is it just taking the Mickey?

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This is a claustrophobic and moving novel set in the early days of the Covid pandemic, when a chance encounter reunites Jay, a lost artist, with Alice, a woman he left behind along with the rest of his life twenty years before.

Alice is living with Rob, who was Jay's best friend back in the art school days, and the tension between the three of them is real and immediate, with the added complexities of adult life chasing them down and providing a harsh comparison to the heady days of their youth in London.

Nostalgia and bittersweet memories clash with the needs of the present, and the portrait Kunzru paints of a lost world and an unsatisfactory present is beautifully done.

This was a very reflective read, with most of the first half of the book being a flashback to the relationship between Jay and Alice and where it all went wrong. I found the relationship deeply touching and extremely realistic for two art students in the UK. The actual art aspect itself was a fascinating insight into how the process can be more important than the art itself, and about defining what art is, or what can be classed as art. Each character introduced was just as fascinating as the last and although I didn't like them, I did feel for them all in one way or another. I would have loved to know more about Nicole as she seemed like a really interesting and complex character, but I understand that in Jay's world, only Alice, art and survival really mattered to him. Overall a really great book set in a really tough time that added a further layer of tension and uncertainty to the situation

Enjoyable characters and themes. The book gets more interesting in the last part, however the prior pacing and the self-indulgent characters navigating life, the pandemic, the power relations and begrudging each other and their own self was a good fit too. Once you get to the half of the book, it becomes more interesting and if you enjoy characters with flaws, the detailed exploration of their inner thoughts and the arts scene, this book can be finished in one or two sittings with great pleasure. I appreciate the writing style too. It is not tiring, but still literary.

This is my fifth Hari Kunzru novel – I have read four of his previous six novels: “The Impressionist”, “Transmission”, and his latest two “White Tears” and “Red Pill” (note despite the titles I do not in any sense see that the latter form some form of trilogy with this novel although a fourth coloured novel would make a great clue for a literary fiction version of the NYT Connections game).

In my review of “Red Pill”, I described Kunzru as an admirably visionary novelist full of a myriad of thought-provoking ideas (particularly around technology and its interaction with the future of humanity) who sees and explores common links between disparate themes, but typically does not entirely manage to coalesce them successfully into a fully coherent novel.

Here by contrast we have a novel much more bounded in both its scope (its setting during the early stages of the pandemic and its cast of five people thrown together by circumstance and serendipity – or possibly design) and in its themes (modern art and its interactions with wealth and privilege).

In fact if there is a precedent for the novel in any of Kunzru’s previous writing it is I would say in his novella “Memory Palace” with its accompanying V&A art installation exhibition – perhaps speaking to Kunzru’s interest in modern, performance based art, which he gives free narrative rein in this novel.

The set up of the novel is simple – the first party, mid-forties narrator Jay, temporarily homeless and living in the car he uses for his hand-to-mouth gig-economy existence, is delivering groceries to a house set in huge and luxurious grounds, and – even behind a mask – immediately recognises the recipient as Alice, who he has not seen since they were in a relationship in the up and coming East London art scene some twenty years previously.

Concerned at his health – he is still recovering from Covid – she persuades him to stay in a remote barn on the property – which she tells him she is staying in with Rob (the art school friend-rival who she left Jay for and to whom Jay is astonished to hear she is still married), Marshal the gallerist of Rob (now a very successful and sought after artist) and Marshal’s girlfriend.

As Jay waits in the barn – initially in secret – he retells the story of his own time in London during and post art college and his interactions then with Alice and Rob: Alice – with a family wealth from her Vietnamese mother - seemingly modelled (as Jay himself says) on the girl in “Common People”; Rob from a similar working class background to the mixed race Jay, but more willing to fit in with the developing art-world culture as money starts to flood in to it – whereas Jay increasingly rejects the idea of art being for sale or even consumption or even as something than can be separated off from the artist’s life and identity.

Initially Jay’s presence is a secret from the others – not least as they have only been given access to the property as its rich doomster owner (Marshal’s backer) has bunkered down in New Zealand – but when the armed and armour clad Marshal, paranoid about Covid and convinced it’s the opening biological salvo in a Sino-American war apprehends and almost shoots Jay – his presence comes into the open: both leading to increased tension between Alice and Rob (who cannot believe that Jay’s presence is an accident – as a slightly unreliable narrator we never really know this for sure ourselves) but fascination on Marshal’s behalf as Jay is it turns out notorious in artistic circles having increasingly moved into the area of politically-motivated individual performance art before suddenly disappearing without trace and long assumed dead.

From there we learn more also of Rob’s artistic struggles, in particular a conflicted relationship with a notorious artist whose work gives the book its title and in the way that one artist overwrites and appropriates another’s work gives perhaps a metaphor for the Rob/Jay dynamic. We also see how Jay’s very fuguer style life (he eventually namechecks Albert [Dadas] but rather delightfully for me the originally inspiration, while unnamed, is the opening of “The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin” – I did not get where I am today by missing 70s sitcom references).

If I had an issue with this book it’s the subject matter and cast – the modern art scene both in its underground/art college/edgy London collective/drug taking part and its high end exhibition/ultra rich collectors part is of best of no interest to me. And while its both inevitable and commendable for novels to address lockdown and the early pandemic stages – this will I suspect prove the least relatable literary pandemic novel most readers will encounter due to the extreme circumstances in which the five are living.

I would also say that while much more coherent than his previous works it was far less intellectually thrilling – although I did find it an interesting tale, with some very strong writing, and the way in which Kunzru traces the arc of Jay’s increasingly all-of-his-life-encompassing performative art pieces is clever.

This is the first book I've read by Hari Kunzru and it definitely won't be the last. I'm not a huge fan of novels set during the pandemic but here it worked well as a framing device and lent itself well to producing a claustrophobic atmosphere. A very skilfully written and carefully paced exploration of art, immigration, race and power.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

A deep dive into the lives of artists and the lengths they go to achieve their goals. Through circumstances created off their own actions, three main characters lives are explored when their passion for art takes their lives in directions they didn’t anticipate. Set during covid with frequent flashbacks, this is a gripping story that keeps you hooked right through to the end.

I've been a Hari Kunzru fan for a while now. For me, he's one of the best - if not THE BEST - British novelist. A master stylist that writes about the world, and the things that matter. I started with Transmission maybe 15+ years ago, Gods Without Men sort of worked for me but some parts were way stronger than others. White Tears was utterly compelling and weird, but it was Red Pill that really kicked things up a notch.

This is the follow up, and it doesn't disappoint. While some might feel the subject matter is comparatively slight compared to the dread and paranoia of Red Pill, this book still has important stuff to say about art, commerce, and the inherent tension between them. It's also just a great story with richly drawn characters, none of them particularly likeable, but I was all the way invested from the first page.

I'm sure there's an element of bias in my review, because Blue Ruin dips into areas where I have a personal connection to the subject matter. The creep of gentrification into East London, the French/Vietnamese/Paris angle, the focus on the business side of the modern art world. It's all stuff I have firsthand experience with, or at least a keen interest in.

The writing is as cool and crisp as ever. From quotidian details like the "fatbellied bottles of Orangina" and "a TV show about teenagers with superpowers" (Heroes, I think? Not sure if the timings match up) which help to sketch the world out in lived-in strokes, to caustic zingers like "an AR-15 or something similar, one of those sinister mass=shooter weapons that are marketed to American men like motorcycles or small batch whiskey, signifiers of rugged individualism." I could quote endlessly from Blue Ruin.

Some reviewers have seen it as a COVID book, and while it does take place in the heights of 2020's madness and makes reference to key events that year, that feels circumstantial. It's just when the story happens, and it provides scaffolding for the plot in some ways, but I don't think Blue Ruin is supposed to be a pandemic polemic.

More than anything, this book captures the inherent strangeness and violence of our times, reporting from the trenches like a battle-hardened journalist with the precision of a surgeon. There hasn't been a British writer quite like JG Ballard - and I doubt there ever will be - but Hari Kunzru comes closest.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the ARC.

I like Hari Kunzru so instantly requested Blue Ruin (2024) when I saw it on Netgalley

It’s a taut, well told, non linear tale centred around the absurd excesses of the art world and the stark contrast with the precariousness of the gig economy.

Two rising artists in 1990s London follow very different career trajectories. Years later they unexpectedly reunite during the Pandemic in a gated estate outside New York for a final reckoning.

Themes that struck me: artistic integrity vs the need to generate money; undocumented workers in the US; art as investment; the pandemic; the paranoia of the wealthy; privilege; delusion; and mental breakdown

Nervy paranoia saturates this imaginative and compelling story. I loved Blue Ruin and was engrossed from beginning to end.

Blue Ruin opens in 2020, just months after much of the world went into lockdown including a renowned British artist and his wife, holed up on a wealthy collector's New York country estate together with their gallerist. Jay’s been sleeping in his car, living hand to mouth, delivering groceries. When he pulls up outside a palatial house, he’s astonished to see the woman he once loved who walked out on him for his best friend back in the ’90s when they were art students in London. When he collapses at Alice’s feet, she hides him in an outbuilding. Things come to a head when Rob discovers his gallerist’s scheme to rescue them from financial ruin, leading to a dramatic climax.
Kunzru’s novel is a witty, absorbing exploration of the ‘90s Britart phenomenon when anything produced by the likes of Damien Hirst and co fetched exorbitant prices. He captures the paranoia of the early pandemic days vividly – disinfection of vegetables, code words to be given before a delivery’s accepted – taken to extremes by Marshal, the New York City gallerist patrolling the estate, tooled up ready to shoot intruders. Themes of social inequality and racism are lightly woven through Jay’s narrative which shifts between the present and the '90s. There’s no neat ending, although Jay does bring one phase of his life to a finish; it’s almost as if the whole experience has been a covid fever dream including the slightly implausible coincidence which begins the novel. An enjoyable read, packed with erudite knowledge of the art world.

A blisteringly atmospheric novel set in the midst of the pandemic. Jay is an artist who, after a disastrous love affair and a subsequent search for meaning in the art world, has dropped through the cracks of his life. Washing up in New York, he works as a taxi driver until he contracts COVID. Forced to sleep in his car and make money delivering groceries, he collapses in the driveway of a house he is delivering to, only to find that his old lover is living there. Forced together again, Jay is finally in a position to revisit his past and interrogate the choices he made. This is full of the kind of claustrophobic atmosphere of Camus' The Plague. The microcosm interrogates the macrocosm and so much is revealed in such a clever, witty and yet sparing way. I loved this.

Blue Ruin is a novel about art and power, as a former artist finds himself facing his past. Jay was an artist in London, where he was in a relationship with Alice until she ran off with his best friend and fellow artist, Rob. Now, however, it is the early days of the pandemic, and Jay is an undocumented gig economy worker delivering groceries. When a delivery to a huge house in the countryside reveals Alice, suddenly Jay is confronted by the art world once again.

It doesn't feel surprising that Hari Kunzru has written a pandemic novel, even though Blue Ruin is a far more an exploration of being an artist, culture, immigration, and money, than it really is about Covid. The pandemic forms the weird coincidence that ignites the plot and fuels the paranoia of the rich that compares with the way in which rich people fund the art world, something that the characters, particularly Jay, reckon with throughout the book. The book follows a present day narrative of a lockdown in a country house, but also extended flashbacks to a much younger Jay, Alice, and Rob, their relationships, and, particularly, their art. There are twists and turns, particularly in the present day story, whilst the book asks, what are the conditions to make art, if any exist, and can you live a life of art.

There are some unfinished threads (for instance, Jay never quite has to face up to anything external, like his app-based job), but generally, this is a book that poses a lot of questions, pokes fun at the 90s art scene, and also looks at race, immigration, and how people can move through the world. It plays with the joke that an artist could do anything and claim it is art, whilst exploring where the power and the money is. As someone who knows very little about the art world, I nevertheless found this a gripping novel, that has a lot of modern commentary but tempers it with an across the decades look at what makes an artist and how an artist makes money.

A bold and sharply witty critique of the ludicrous extremes within the art world and the unpredictable challenges of the gig economy. Kunzru's narrative, a reflective journey of a once-prominent art figure questioning "How did I get here?", unfolds as a meticulously constructed breadcrumb trail. The story revolves around his daring decision to forsake everything, leading to an unforeseen confrontation as he is abruptly reintroduced to the lives of a former lover and a friend/rival. The narrative is a captivating delight to traverse, skillfully crafted and laden with thrilling revelations.

Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru moves between two timelines of the past and present and explores how the main character has ended up in life where he is and not where he thought he would be.