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Title details for Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru - Available

Blue Ruin

by Hari Kunzru
Hari Kunzru
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
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1 of 2 copies available
It's the 1990's, and Jay is an artist tipped for greatness. Shortly after graduating from his London art school, a promising career is already taking shape before him. Despite the brutal end of his intense relationship with Alice, his great love, he's destined to make his mark on the world as one of the most brilliant young creatives of the last century. Everyone is going to remember his name.
It's 2020, and Jay lives out of his car, working as a delivery driver in wealthy upstate New York. Sick and undocumented, Jay arrives at an enormous mansion and collapses from exhaustion —- right at the feet of Alice, whom he had hoped he would never see again. Twenty years on, and while Jay teeters on the edge, she's married the man she left him for; Jay's former best friend and fellow artist, Rob. Ashamed, Jay hopes she won't recognize him behind his dirty surgical mask, but when she does, she invites him to recover on the property, setting the stage for a devastating reckoning that's been 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. This is a novel suffused with tension and melancholy; an ode to an iconic art scene from an author at the height of his powers.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 14, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781398528932
      • File size: 254911 KB
      • Duration: 08:51:03

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 5, 2024
      Kunzru (Red Pill) takes on the excessive and rapacious tendencies of the art world in his dazzling latest. Jay, a 40-something undocumented performance artist from India, left behind the competitive milieu of his London art school after becoming disillusioned, and has supported himself with various manual labor jobs. Now, during the first summer of the Covid-19 pandemic, he lives in his car and delivers groceries in Upstate New York. The gig brings him to the home of his ex-girlfriend Alice and his former best friend Rob, whom Alice left him for 20 years earlier in London. Fatigued and beleaguered by brain fog two months after getting Covid, Jay cautiously reenters his old friends’ lives. Alice, stuck managing Rob’s studio, is reminded of the freer life she used to lead with Jay, while Rob, a successful painter, reveals himself to be a consummate art monster, cheating on Alice and spending too much of their money on lavish, boozy parties. When Rob’s gallerist, Marshal, learns of Jay’s long-running self-documentation project, Fugue, he’s desperate to work with the performance artist. If Jay doesn’t let his life’s work be documented, Marshal argues, “It will slip away into nothingness you’re just some guy who left the art world.” The gripping tension between Jay and the rest of the cast gives way in the graceful final scene to a feeling as melancholy as watching a beloved painting get auctioned off in a beige room at Sotheby’s. This is immensely satisfying. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Hari Kunzru narrates his novel, set during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jay, once a rising star in the British art world, is now living in his car in the U.S. Kunzru lends his own English accent and gravelly timbre to working-class Jay. One day, on his pizza delivery route, Jay's ex, Alice, opens the door, feels sorry for him, and offers him shelter. She's living with the man she left him for on a large property. As Jay reconnects with the world he left behind and with his identity as an artist, a violent conspiracy theorist is also living with his girlfriend on the property. The convergence of these five characters creates a volatile mix. Kunzru's contemplative narration captures the deeply personal side of art in relation to the artist. C.R. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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