Jessica Woodbury's Reviews > Blue Ruin

We are all calling this novel the third in a "loose trilogy" because Kunzru's previous two novels also have "color" titles. And I can see how this fits with the other two in some ways, but it doesn't fit more than it does. These novels are all about artists, about class, about envy, about fear. Perhaps the similarities of the first two novels, which both have this amplifying dread and become basically horror novels by their conclusions, set up expectations? But the third does not really fit, though it has its own minor tensions, a smaller version of what the previous two did.

Regardless of the comparisons, this one had discrete pieces I enjoyed but never came together for me as a novel. Our protagonist, Jay, is a former performance artist who left that world, getting by now as an invisible undocumented person in the US. After getting Covid early in the pandemic, he was kicked out of the housing he shared with several other undocumented men, and now sleeping in his car, finds himself delivering groceries to a lavish estate. The recipient just happens to be his ex-girlfriend Alice from his artist days.

We spend a lot of time going back and forth from the present to their past. The art is well done (so many novelists write about art, but so few of them manage to make the art actually interesting and Kunzru succeeds here) and the scenes of squalor and creation are quite vivid. Jay's best friend during these days is Rob, who happens to be Alice's now husband. There is tension between Jay and both of these other two. Rob is a fellow starving artist, but has the bluster and carefree disregard of a white boy. Alice and Jay are both people of color and stand out in their crowd, but Alice comes from money, and is struggling to minimize contact with her family while also not willing to leave their funding her life. Jay's surprising success ripples out among these relationships, but is also a struggle for Jay. He wants to be an artist but he does not want to have to perform on command for payment. His work pushes up against capitalism while also providing a paycheck and the conflict seems unsustainable.

In the present, Jay is almost a cipher. We know very little of how he's spent the last few decades, or any of the characters. His lingering Covid symptoms make it difficult for him to have many desires beyond the most basic physical needs. He starts to recover, to find and appreciate art and beauty again, while Alice hides him away on the vast property. But of course a conflict is coming.

I wish Kunzru had more to push here about that art and capitalism conflict that felt different. Jay's journey is interesting but we only get the very beginning of it, not anything that came after. And Rob is more cliche than anything else, not fully explored. We never understand why Alice, who we know is smart and capable, has chosen to spend her life cleaning up after Rob. And so much of this is left unexplored that I had more questions than answers in this book.

There is a lot to enjoy here, but it didn't come together the way I'd hoped, it didn't throw big ideas at me or explore them with the kind of wit and nuance I expect from Kunzru. It's a quiet book with these sections of loud roaring interspersed along the way.