Blue Ruin — Hari Kunzru

From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty and power, capital, art and those who devote their lives to creating it

Once, Jay was an artist. After graduating from art school in London, he was tipped for greatness, a promising career taking shape before him. That was not to happen. Now, undocumented in the United States, having survived Covid, he lives out of his car and barely makes a living as an essential worker, delivering groceries in a wealthy area of upstate New York. One day, as Jay attempts to make a delivery at a house surrounded by acres of woods, he is confronted by his destructive past: Alice, a former lover from his art school days, and the friend she left him for. Recognizing Jay's dire circumstances, Alice invites him to stay on their property -- where an erratic gallery owner and his girlfriend are isolating as well -- setting in motion a reckoning that has been decades in the making.

Gripping and brilliantly orchestrated, Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time, delivering an extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he once loved and left behind.