Hari Kunzru’s latest novel, Blue Ruin, is an exploration of the intersection of art and commerce. The novel is the completion of Kunzru’s red, white, and blue pseudo-trilogy (White Tears, Red Pill, Blue Ruin)—which explores contemporary social issues like racism, classism, and economic inequality. Blue Ruin is set during the early days of the pandemic, narrated by a middle-aged Jay, forced out of his apartment after getting the virus and now delivering groceries in upstate New York. Jay is living out of his car and still battling symptoms when he winds up making a delivery at the home of Alice—his former art school girlfriend who left him for his friend/rival, her now husband of 20 years, Rob. Alice, seeing Jay’s poor health, invites him to stay on the property with her, Rob, and Jay’s eccentric patron and his girlfriend. The novel takes place as the group attempts to come to terms with their past entanglements, and the ways they’ve changed in the intervening years.
While the novel is certainly a part-love triangle story, its central focus is exploring how these characters navigate the complicated question of the relationship between art and money. Each character emerges from a different background—Alice comes from a wealthy family but has a fractured relationship with them, Rob has a more middle class background, while Jay was raised by his grandmother and had less access to wealth. Each character arrives at art school in London with their own relationship to money, and what part it should play in their life as an artist. For Jay, the two are completely separate, he is content with the starving artist identity, but for the others, its not so simple. Each character has to ask themselves how they can make a life with their art, and ask themselves the eternal question—is there any art that hasn’t been tainted by commerce?
Kunzru carefully weaves the stories of these character’s time in school, as well as the various ways they’ve changed and grown in the intervening years. As is the case with all romantic relationships, the reader senses that we’re not getting the full picture of things from Jay’s perspective—and his conversations with Alice provide many of the answers we may be searching for. The real master stroke of the novel is how Kunzru merges the romantic dynamic with the book’s central philosophical inquiries about art, power, and money. It is impossible to understand the characters’ relationship to each other separate from that context, and each of these questions only deepen the connections further.
Blue Ruin ends up in a very different place from where it began, and Kunzru’s ability to bring the reader along on this 20 year journey is a testament to his deft writing ability. The novel never overplay’s its hand, and is both a propulsive but deeply thoughtful meditation on the life of the artist, and the role of art in social change. This novel is a masterful example of Kunzru’s ability to fashion interpersonal dynamics and complicate them with essential human questions.